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Bradley vs Braxson

American parents have registered 314,957 Bradleys since 1880, against 214 Braxsons. Bradley is still ahead, with 830 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bradley against Braxson, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bradley Braxson

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

Bradley has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2021, when Bradley had 1,132 and Braxson had 19.

Side by side

  Bradley Braxson
Total US births 314,957214
Most in one year 7,26225
Babies in 2025 83012
Estimated living today 279,000210
Median age today 427
Peak year 19802019
Best rank 51st boys4,114th boys
Rank in 2025 403rd6,803rd
First recorded 18802011
Girls / boys 1,949 / 313,0080 / 214

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 Bradleys alive today are over 42; half the Braxsons are over 7. 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 Bradley Braxson
England and Wales 30,3498

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: Bradley and Braxson.