Humanverse

Arran vs Arrie

American parents have registered 2,110 Arries since 1880, against 284 Arrans. But in 2025 it was Arran that was commoner, 5 babies to 5.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Arran against Arrie, 1880 to 2025 0 15 30 45 60 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Arran Arrie

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 137 years in which either name was published, Arrie for 112 years and Arran for 25 years. The lead changed hands 16 times.

9 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Arran Arrie
Total US births 2842,110
Most in one year 1551
Babies in 2025 55
Estimated living today 280620
Median age today 1954
Peak year 20081922
Best rank 5,767th boys1,207th girls
Rank in 2025 12,008th14,942nd
First recorded 19731880
Girls / boys 0 / 2841,792 / 318

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 Arries alive today are over 54; half the Arrans are over 19. That is 35 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 Arran Arrie
England and Wales 2,1224

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: Arran and Arrie.