Romaine vs Romeo
American parents have registered 26,864 Romeos since 1880, against 4,126 Romaines. Romeo is still ahead, with 1,129 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Romaine Romeo
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 138 years in which either name was published, Romeo for 114 years and Romaine for 24 years. The lead changed hands 22 times.
- 1890–1926 Romeo ahead, apart from 4 short spells
- 1927–1941 Romaine ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 1945–2025 Romeo ahead, apart from one short spell
13 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Romaine | Romeo | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 4,126 | 26,864 |
| Most in one year | 107 | 1,191 |
| Babies in 2025 | 8 | 1,129 |
| Estimated living today | 1,600 | 24,000 |
| Median age today | 64 | 11 |
| Peak year | 1928 | 2024 |
| Best rank | 742nd girls | 283rd boys |
| Rank in 2025 | unranked | 301st |
| First recorded | 1887 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 3,136 / 990 | 0 / 26,864 |
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 Romaines alive today are over 64; half the Romeos are over 11. That is 53 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Romaine Pennsylvania (14.6×), Maryland (4.5×), Michigan (0.9×)
- Romeo Nevada (4.9×), Maine (3.1×), Arizona (2.9×)
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 | Romaine | Romeo |
|---|---|---|
| France | 1,755 | 15,055 Roméo |
| England and Wales | 102 | 3,379 |
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: Romaine and Romeo.