Humanverse

Philemon vs Philippe

American parents have registered 3,043 Philippes since 1880, against 925 Philemons. Philippe is still ahead, with 14 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Philemon against Philippe, 1880 to 2025 0 15 30 45 60 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Philemon Philippe

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 112 years in which either name was published, Philippe for 106 years and Philemon for 6 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Philemon Philippe
Total US births 9253,043
Most in one year 2459
Babies in 2025 1014
Estimated living today 7202,500
Median age today 3041
Peak year 20171979
Best rank 4,224th boys1,177th boys
Rank in 2025 7,679th6,143rd
First recorded 19161914
Girls / boys 0 / 9250 / 3,043

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 Philippes alive today are over 41; half the Philemons are over 30. That is 11 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 Philemon Philippe
France 1,345539,045
England and Wales 17139

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: Philemon and Philippe.