Humanverse

Ron vs Ronel

American parents have registered 36,432 Rons since 1880, against 558 Ronels. Ron is still ahead, with 24 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ron Ronel

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 103 years in which either name was published, Ron for 102 years and Ronel for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Ron Ronel
Total US births 36,432558
Most in one year 1,88816
Babies in 2025 247
Estimated living today 27,000510
Median age today 6227
Peak year 19601995
Best rank 170th boys3,854th boys
Rank in 2025 4,249th9,714th
First recorded 19191922
Girls / boys 70 / 36,3626 / 552

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 Rons alive today are over 62; half the Ronels are over 27. That is 35 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 Ron Ronel
France 28545
England and Wales 17254

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: Ron and Ronel.