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Robel vs Robert

American parents have registered 4,869,849 Roberts since 1880, against 714 Robels. Robert is still ahead, with 3,777 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Robel against Robert, 1880 to 2025 0 25k 50k 75k 100k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Robel Robert

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

Robert 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 2017, when Robel had 29 and Robert had 5,566.

Side by side

  Robel Robert
Total US births 7144,869,849
Most in one year 3591,892
Babies in 2025 143,777
Estimated living today 7002.6 million
Median age today 1660
Peak year 20091947
Best rank 3,223rd boys2nd boys
Rank in 2025 6,143rd92nd
First recorded 19841880
Girls / boys 0 / 71420,119 / 4,849,730

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 Roberts alive today are over 60; half the Robels are over 16. That is 44 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 Robel Robert
England and Wales 8327,772
Norway 1628,640

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: Robel and Robert.