Humanverse

Rene vs Renette

American parents have registered 72,779 Renes since 1880, against 567 Renettes. Rene is still ahead, with 210 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rene against Renette, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rene Renette

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

Rene 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 1941, when Rene had 239 and Renette had 8.

Side by side

  Rene Renette
Total US births 72,779567
Most in one year 1,64932
Babies in 2025 210under 5
Estimated living today 59,000470
Median age today 4863
Peak year 19701960
Best rank 261st boys2,013th girls
Rank in 2025 1,091stunranked
First recorded 18801935
Girls / boys 21,839 / 50,940567 / 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 Renettes alive today are over 63; half the Renes are over 48. That is 15 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 Rene Renette
France 516,605 René290

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: Rene and Renette.