Rose vs Rosemary
American parents have registered 502,704 Roses since 1880, against 163,523 Rosemarys. Rose is still ahead, with 2,386 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Rose Rosemary
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
Rose 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 1946, when Rose had 5,192 and Rosemary had 4,494.
Side by side
| Rose | Rosemary | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 502,704 | 163,523 |
| Most in one year | 9,821 | 4,542 |
| Babies in 2025 | 2,386 | 1,222 |
| Estimated living today | 197,000 | 90,000 |
| Median age today | 66 | 67 |
| Peak year | 1917 | 1947 |
| Best rank | 16th girls | 80th girls |
| Rank in 2025 | 114th | 251st |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1882 |
| Girls / boys | 500,586 / 2,118 | 163,165 / 358 |
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.
Where each one is strongest
- Rose New York (2.0×), Rhode Island (1.9×), Pennsylvania (1.8×)
- Rosemary Illinois (1.6×), New York (1.6×), Wisconsin (1.6×)
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 | Rose | Rosemary |
|---|---|---|
| France | 117,895 | 460 |
| England and Wales | 18,709 | 2,301 |
| Ireland | 3,637 | 1,676 |
| New Zealand | 1,522 | 1,918 |
| Scotland | 1,705 | 732 |
| Northern Ireland | 795 | 31 |
| Italy | 214 | 298 |
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: Rose and Rosemary.