Humanverse

Olivea vs Oliver

American parents have registered 270,680 Olivers since 1880, against 644 Oliveas. Oliver is still ahead, with 14,963 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Olivea against Oliver, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Olivea Oliver

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

Oliver has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1998, when Olivea had 23 and Oliver had 740.

Side by side

  Olivea Oliver
Total US births 644270,680
Most in one year 4815,421
Babies in 2025 714,963
Estimated living today 620231,000
Median age today 177
Peak year 20082024
Best rank 3,420th girls3rd boys
Rank in 2025 11,932nd3rd
First recorded 19171880
Girls / boys 644 / 0777 / 269,903

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 Oliveas alive today are over 17; half the Olivers are over 7. 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 Olivea Oliver
England and Wales 10160,351

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: Olivea and Oliver.