How rare is my name?

Every year the US Social Security Administration publishes how many babies of each sex got each first name. We load those records from 1880 to 2025 and add them up for the name you type, separately for girls and boys.

The chart adds girls and boys together for each decade from the 1880s to the 2020s; the latest decade is still in progress. For last names we use the US Census Bureau's 2020 surname list, the most recent with counts for every common surname, and show each name's 2010 rank next to it.

Names given to fewer than 5 babies in a year are left out of the records for privacy, and the records keep letters only, 2 to 15 of them, so Mary-Kate is listed as Marykate. A name that never reaches 5 in a year does not appear at all. The verdict looks at babies today and at everyone born since 1880: Debra is rare for babies now but was given to more than half a million girls, so the checker calls it rare today and very common among adults.

Want the meaning too? Browse names A to Z or try the baby name generator.

The Social Security files count babies born in the US who applied for a card, from 1880 on. That is not the same as how many people have a name today: the totals include people who have died and miss everyone born abroad. In April 2026 the Census Bureau published first-name counts from the 2020 Census for the first time since 1990, and comparing the two shows the gap:

Older names lose people over time, as Richard and Kathleen show, and names common among immigrants are undercounted in birth records: the Census counted three times as many people named Mohammad as US records show babies. So use the total here as a guide to a name's history, not a head count.

Far more than any list shows. The 2020 Census recorded about 5.2 million different first names, yet only 53,418 were held by 100 or more people, and those few cover 93.8% of everyone; Michael, John, James, David and Robert led. For last names the count was about 7.8 million. The Social Security files, which only list a name once 5 babies of one sex get it in a year, hold about 106,000 different first names since 1880. So if your name is missing here, you are in very large, very varied company.

Spelling matters too: every spelling is counted on its own, so Caitlin, Katelyn and Kaitlyn each get their own totals, and the records also hold a few placeholders, such as Unknown and Baby, that were never chosen names.