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Richard vs Rickie

American parents have registered 2,587,082 Richards since 1880, against 18,237 Rickies. Richard is still ahead, with 1,505 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Richard Rickie

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 2021, when Richard had 1,783 and Rickie had 36.

Side by side

  Richard Rickie
Total US births 2,587,08218,237
Most in one year 58,9901,055
Babies in 2025 1,50527
Estimated living today 1.4 million14,000
Median age today 6364
Peak year 19461954
Best rank 5th boys218th boys
Rank in 2025 234th6,446th
First recorded 18801896
Girls / boys 9,530 / 2,577,5521,854 / 16,383

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.

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 Rickie
Ireland 11,3454
England and Wales 8,65742
Scotland 8,3973

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 Rickie.