Humanverse

Olaf vs Olajide

American parents have registered 2,531 Olafs since 1880, against 37 Olajides. Olaf is still ahead, with 5 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Olaf against Olajide, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Olaf Olajide

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 145 years in which either name was published, Olaf for 144 years and Olajide for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Olaf Olajide
Total US births 2,53137
Most in one year 7912
Babies in 2025 5under 5
Estimated living today 93040
Median age today 4535
Peak year 19161987
Best rank 662nd boys3,731st boys
Rank in 2025 12,008thunranked
First recorded 18801987
Girls / boys 0 / 2,5310 / 37

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 Olafs alive today are over 45; half the Olajides are over 35. That is 10 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Olaf Olajide
England and Wales 76418

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: Olaf and Olajide.