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Richard vs Richardo

American parents have registered 2,587,082 Richards since 1880, against 2,065 Richardos. Richard is still ahead, with 1,505 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Richard against Richardo, 1880 to 2025 0 15k 30k 45k 60k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Richard Richardo

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

Richard 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 2016, when Richard had 2,525 and Richardo had 12.

Side by side

  Richard Richardo
Total US births 2,587,0822,065
Most in one year 58,99067
Babies in 2025 1,505under 5
Estimated living today 1.4 million1,800
Median age today 6344
Peak year 19461988
Best rank 5th boys1,249th boys
Rank in 2025 234thunranked
First recorded 18801923
Girls / boys 9,530 / 2,577,5520 / 2,065

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 Richards alive today are over 63; half the Richardos are over 44. That is 19 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 Richard Richardo
France 84,2005
England and Wales 8,6576

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: Richard and Richardo.