Humanverse

Rick vs Rickard

American parents have registered 81,964 Ricks since 1880, against 625 Rickards. Rick is still ahead, with 40 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rick against Rickard, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rick Rickard

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

Of the 107 years in which either name was published, Rick for 106 years and Rickard for 1 year. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Rick Rickard
Total US births 81,964625
Most in one year 5,46730
Babies in 2025 40under 5
Estimated living today 62,000370
Median age today 6469
Peak year 19581958
Best rank 77th boys1,420th boys
Rank in 2025 3,036thunranked
First recorded 19191916
Girls / boys 135 / 81,8290 / 625

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 Rickards alive today are over 69; half the Ricks are over 64. That is 5 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 Rick Rickard
Ireland 34

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: Rick and Rickard.