Humanverse

Rene vs Renny

American parents have registered 72,779 Renes since 1880, against 790 Rennys. Rene is still ahead, with 210 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Rene Renny

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 2025, when Rene had 210 and Renny had 18.

Side by side

  Rene Renny
Total US births 72,779790
Most in one year 1,64918
Babies in 2025 21018
Estimated living today 59,000660
Median age today 4837
Peak year 19701976
Best rank 261st boys2,709th boys
Rank in 2025 1,091st10,695th
First recorded 18801936
Girls / boys 21,839 / 50,940129 / 661

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 Renes alive today are over 48; half the Rennys are over 37. 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 Rene Renny
France 516,605 René10
England and Wales 56421

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 Renny.