Humanverse

Tora vs Torrance

American parents have registered 4,152 Torrances since 1880, against 1,016 Toras. Torrance is still ahead, with 24 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Tora against Torrance, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Tora Torrance

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 84 years in which either name was published, Torrance for 75 years and Tora for 9 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Tora Torrance
Total US births 1,0164,152
Most in one year 53128
Babies in 2025 924
Estimated living today 9403,900
Median age today 4435
Peak year 19761973
Best rank 1,775th girls710th boys
Rank in 2025 10,107th5,208th
First recorded 18981940
Girls / boys 990 / 26562 / 3,590

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 Toras alive today are over 44; half the Torrances are over 35. That is 9 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 Tora Torrance
England and Wales 738

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: Tora and Torrance.