Humanverse

Syre vs Syrena

American parents have registered 693 Syrenas since 1880, against 642 Syres. But in 2025 it was Syre that was commoner, 40 babies to 16.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Syre against Syrena, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Syre Syrena

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 54 years in which either name was published, Syrena for 43 years and Syre for 11 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Syre Syrena
Total US births 642693
Most in one year 7526
Babies in 2025 4016
Estimated living today 640680
Median age today 521
Peak year 20212012
Best rank 1,982nd boys5,253rd girls
Rank in 2025 3,036th6,838th
First recorded 20011960
Girls / boys 0 / 642693 / 0

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 Syrenas alive today are over 21; half the Syres are over 5. That is 16 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 Syre Syrena
England and Wales 116

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: Syre and Syrena.