Humanverse

Ned vs Nedra

American parents have registered 17,297 Neds since 1880, against 7,104 Nedras. Ned is still ahead, with 8 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ned against Nedra, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ned Nedra

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

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Ned for 142 years and Nedra for 4 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Ned Nedra
Total US births 17,2977,104
Most in one year 319179
Babies in 2025 8under 5
Estimated living today 6,5004,000
Median age today 6765
Peak year 19391941
Best rank 312th boys518th girls
Rank in 2025 8,910thunranked
First recorded 18801906
Girls / boys 5 / 17,2927,104 / 0

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 Neds alive today are over 67; half the Nedras are over 65. That is 2 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 Ned Nedra
France 3020

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: Ned and Nedra.