Humanverse

Randal vs Raneem

American parents have registered 29,324 Randals since 1880, against 732 Raneems. But in 2025 it was Raneem that was commoner, 30 babies to 18.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Randal against Raneem, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Randal Raneem

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 115 years in which either name was published, Randal for 110 years and Raneem for 5 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Randal Raneem
Total US births 29,324732
Most in one year 1,47737
Babies in 2025 1830
Estimated living today 23,000730
Median age today 6215
Peak year 19582010
Best rank 189th boys4,023rd girls
Rank in 2025 5,208th4,546th
First recorded 19091992
Girls / boys 132 / 29,192732 / 0

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 Randals alive today are over 62; half the Raneems are over 15. That is 47 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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 Randal Raneem
England and Wales 3133
France 2025
Ireland 43

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: Randal and Raneem.