Humanverse

Rowe vs Rowen

American parents have registered 10,816 Rowens since 1880, against 712 Rowes. Rowen is still ahead, with 772 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rowe against Rowen, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rowe Rowen

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 62 years in which either name was published, Rowen for 36 years and Rowe for 26 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Rowe Rowen
Total US births 71210,816
Most in one year 95892
Babies in 2025 95772
Estimated living today 56011,000
Median age today 47
Peak year 20252024
Best rank 2,604th boys445th boys
Rank in 2025 2,604th486th
First recorded 19141944
Girls / boys 185 / 5272,647 / 8,169

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 Rowens alive today are over 7; half the Rowes are over 4. That is 3 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 Rowe Rowen
England and Wales 91650
Scotland 334

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: Rowe and Rowen.