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Rajah vs Rajesh

American parents have registered 682 Rajeshes since 1880, against 618 Rajahs. But in 2025 it was Rajah that was commoner, 7 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rajah against Rajesh, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rajah Rajesh

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 62 years in which either name was published, Rajah for 33 years and Rajesh for 29 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Rajah Rajesh
Total US births 618682
Most in one year 4443
Babies in 2025 7under 5
Estimated living today 600630
Median age today 2246
Peak year 19941976
Best rank 2,951st boys1,346th boys
Rank in 2025 9,714thunranked
First recorded 19511965
Girls / boys 175 / 4430 / 682

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 Rajeshes alive today are over 46; half the Rajahs are over 22. That is 24 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 Rajah Rajesh
France 605
England and Wales 738

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: Rajah and Rajesh.