Humanverse

Richard vs Richmond

American parents have registered 2,587,082 Richards since 1880, against 4,305 Richmonds. Richard is still ahead, with 1,505 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Richard Richmond

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 1899, when Richard had 749 and Richmond had 19.

Side by side

  Richard Richmond
Total US births 2,587,0824,305
Most in one year 58,99073
Babies in 2025 1,50517
Estimated living today 1.4 million2,200
Median age today 6344
Peak year 19461921
Best rank 5th boys790th boys
Rank in 2025 234th5,399th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 9,530 / 2,577,5520 / 4,305

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 Richmonds 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 Richmond
France 84,20030
England and Wales 8,657118

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 Richmond.