Rema vs Remus

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Rema Remus

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 120 years in which either name was published, Rema for 79 years and Remus for 41 years. The lead changed hands 34 times.

• 1889–1912 Remus ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1916–1949 Rema ahead, apart from 3 short spells
• 1955–1957 Remus ahead
• 1958–2009 Rema ahead, apart from 3 short spells
• 2010–2025 Remus ahead, apart from one short spell

22 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

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 Remas alive today are over 40; half the Remuses are over 35. That is 5 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.

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

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• Rema vs Remington
• Rema vs Remi
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• Rema vs Remo
• Rema vs Remmy
• Remus vs Remington
• Remus vs Remi