Humanverse

Wendel vs Wendelin

American parents have registered 2,147 Wendels since 1880, against 559 Wendelins. Wendel is still ahead, with 5 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Wendel against Wendelin, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Wendel Wendelin

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 107 years in which either name was published, Wendel for 106 years and Wendelin for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Wendel Wendelin
Total US births 2,147559
Most in one year 4530
Babies in 2025 5under 5
Estimated living today 1,200310
Median age today 5868
Peak year 19401954
Best rank 952nd boys1,909th girls
Rank in 2025 12,008thunranked
First recorded 19111912
Girls / boys 0 / 2,147369 / 190

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 Wendelins alive today are over 68; half the Wendels are over 58. That is 10 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 Wendel Wendelin
France 6585

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: Wendel and Wendelin.