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Nathanael vs Nathaneal

American parents have registered 22,244 Nathanaels since 1880, against 908 Nathaneals. Nathanael is still ahead, with 442 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Nathanael against Nathaneal, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Nathanael Nathaneal

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Nathanael has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1915 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1982, when Nathanael had 369 and Nathaneal had 27.

Side by side

  Nathanael Nathaneal
Total US births 22,244908
Most in one year 60939
Babies in 2025 442under 5
Estimated living today 21,000880
Median age today 2326
Peak year 20001999
Best rank 408th boys2,300th boys
Rank in 2025 632ndunranked
First recorded 19151972
Girls / boys 17 / 22,2270 / 908

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Nathaneals alive today are over 26; half the Nathanaels are over 23. That is 3 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Nathanael Nathaneal
England and Wales 1,48134

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Nathanael and Nathaneal.