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Theodore vs Theodorus

American parents have registered 318,175 Theodores since 1880, against 35 Theodoruses. Theodore is still ahead, with 13,362 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Theodore Theodorus

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

Theodore 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 2024, when Theodore had 12,082 and Theodorus had 14.

Side by side

  Theodore Theodorus
Total US births 318,17535
Most in one year 13,36214
Babies in 2025 13,3625
Estimated living today 202,00040
Median age today 131
Peak year 20252024
Best rank 4th boys6,199th boys
Rank in 2025 4th12,008th
First recorded 18802020
Girls / boys 969 / 317,2060 / 35

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 Theodores alive today are over 13; half the Theodoruses are over 1. That is 12 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 Theodore Theodorus
England and Wales 32,8496
France 15,5155

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: Theodore and Theodorus.