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Samera vs Samuel

American parents have registered 823,085 Samuels since 1880, against 571 Sameras. Samuel is still ahead, with 8,342 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Samera against Samuel, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Samera Samuel

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

Samuel 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 2004, when Samera had 30 and Samuel had 14,185.

Side by side

  Samera Samuel
Total US births 571823,085
Most in one year 3014,845
Babies in 2025 78,342
Estimated living today 560627,000
Median age today 1927
Peak year 20042001
Best rank 4,492nd girls26th boys
Rank in 2025 11,932nd18th
First recorded 19751880
Girls / boys 571 / 02,889 / 820,196

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 Samuels alive today are over 27; half the Sameras are over 19. That is 8 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 Samera Samuel
England and Wales 162109,273
France 19597,380
Scotland 45,928

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: Samera and Samuel.