Oliva vs Olivier
American parents have registered 2,010 Oliviers since 1880, against 2,008 Olivas. Olivier is still ahead, with 52 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Oliva Olivier
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 131 years in which either name was published, Oliva for 90 years and Olivier for 41 years. The lead changed hands 19 times.
- 1884–1960 Oliva ahead
- 1966–1973 Olivier ahead
- 1976–1979 Oliva ahead
- 1980–1982 Olivier ahead
- 1983–2000 Oliva ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 2004–2025 Olivier ahead
12 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Oliva | Olivier | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 2,008 | 2,010 |
| Most in one year | 34 | 78 |
| Babies in 2025 | 16 | 52 |
| Estimated living today | 1,300 | 2,000 |
| Median age today | 26 | 15 |
| Peak year | 1990 | 2011 |
| Best rank | 3,227th girls | 1,824th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 6,838th | 2,539th |
| First recorded | 1884 | 1924 |
| Girls / boys | 1,976 / 32 | 21 / 1,989 |
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 Olivas alive today are over 26; half the Oliviers are over 15. That is 11 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Oliva California (6.4×), Texas (1.9×), New York (1.6×)
- Olivier Florida (6.1×), New York (4.3×), Illinois (3.3×)
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 | Oliva | Olivier |
|---|---|---|
| France | 380 | 280,365 |
| England and Wales | 10 | 2,226 |
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: Oliva and Olivier.