Humanverse

Azeem vs Azel

American parents have registered 642 Azeems since 1880, against 558 Azels. But in 2025 it was Azel that was commoner, 26 babies to 23.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Azeem Azel

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 58 years in which either name was published, Azeem for 30 years and Azel for 28 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Azeem Azel
Total US births 642558
Most in one year 3343
Babies in 2025 2326
Estimated living today 630460
Median age today 156
Peak year 20232023
Best rank 3,474th boys3,293rd boys
Rank in 2025 4,396th4,050th
First recorded 19791900
Girls / boys 0 / 64288 / 470

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 Azeems alive today are over 15; half the Azels are over 6. That is 9 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

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 Azeem Azel
England and Wales 40921
France 5360

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: Azeem and Azel.