Look it up
How common is my name?
117,820 names on file · Living bearers estimated from life tables
Two numbers answer this, and they disagree more often than you would think: how many Americans carry the name today, and how many babies were given it this year. A name can be everywhere in a nursing home and nowhere in a nursery. Type one and you get both.
Look up a name
The box resolves any recorded spelling, including ones that never entered the top 1000.
What common actually looks like
The names the most living Americans carry
Estimated living bearers
- 1Michael3,643,684
- 2James3,021,988
- 3John2,822,156
- 4David2,764,370
- 5Robert2,678,137
- 6William2,248,481
- 7Christopher1,905,745
- 8Mary1,788,872
- 9Joseph1,711,152
- 10Daniel1,643,260
- 11Matthew1,535,542
- 12Richard1,499,292
Births weighted by official life tables. The full ranking is its own page.
And what rare looks like
One name at each rung of the 2025 chart
Girls, 2025
Read the right-hand column as: one baby of that sex in every N born that year was given the name. It is the same arithmetic every name page runs, on the rungs that make the scale legible.
Frequently asked
The short answers
- How common is my name?
- Type it in the box above. Every name page carries an estimate of how many Americans alive today carry the name, and where it ranks among names given this year.
- How rare is my name?
- The same lookup answers it from the other end: how many babies of that sex, in 2025, were given the name — expressed as one in every N. A name at #1000 on the chart is already one child in several thousand.
- How is the number of living bearers worked out?
- Every recorded birth year for the name is weighted by the Social Security Administration's own life tables, which give the share of a birth cohort still alive today. It is an estimate built from official figures, not a headcount.
- Why is my name not in the records at all?
- A name is published only when at least five American babies were given it in the same year. Below that the count is withheld, so rare spellings can be missing entirely — and a name common elsewhere in the world can be rare in the US record.
Common, rare — which one are you after?
Most people arrive wanting one and leave wanting the other. Put two candidates head to head and watch which way you actually lean.
Free to start · no account needed · everyone you invite votes in one tap