Humanverse

Robbert vs Robyn

American parents have registered 64,604 Robyns since 1880, against 580 Robberts. Robyn is still ahead, with 159 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Robbert Robyn

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 108 years in which either name was published, Robyn for 94 years and Robbert for 14 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Robbert Robyn
Total US births 58064,604
Most in one year 161,907
Babies in 2025 under 5159
Estimated living today 34059,000
Median age today 5850
Peak year 19561964
Best rank 2,015th boys195th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked1,436th
First recorded 19151921
Girls / boys 0 / 58063,364 / 1,240

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 Robberts alive today are over 58; half the Robyns are over 50. That is 8 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 Robbert Robyn
England and Wales 315,232
Belgium 123237

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: Robbert and Robyn.