Humanverse

Termaine vs Terrance

American parents have registered 70,921 Terrances since 1880, against 701 Termaines. Terrance is still ahead, with 109 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Termaine against Terrance, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Termaine Terrance

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

Terrance has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1895 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1982, when Termaine had 51 and Terrance had 1,277.

Side by side

  Termaine Terrance
Total US births 70170,921
Most in one year 511,440
Babies in 2025 under 5109
Estimated living today 67060,000
Median age today 3944
Peak year 19821988
Best rank 1,464th boys193rd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,564th
First recorded 19711895
Girls / boys 13 / 688751 / 70,170

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 Terrances alive today are over 44; half the Termaines are over 39. That is 5 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Termaine and Terrance.