Humanverse

Violet vs Violette

American parents have registered 185,845 Violets since 1880, against 6,403 Violettes. Violet is still ahead, with 7,546 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Violet against Violette, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Violet Violette

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

Violet 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 1981, when Violet had 147 and Violette had 17.

Side by side

  Violet Violette
Total US births 185,8456,403
Most in one year 7,546298
Babies in 2025 7,546298
Estimated living today 106,0004,200
Median age today 98
Peak year 20252025
Best rank 13th girls893rd girls
Rank in 2025 13th893rd
First recorded 18801886
Girls / boys 185,561 / 2846,403 / 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.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Violet Violette
France 1024,355
England and Wales 15,655234
Belgium 95933
Switzerland 3085

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: Violet and Violette.