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Branch vs Brandy

American parents have registered 108,861 Brandys since 1880, against 1,063 Branches. Brandy is still ahead, with 58 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Branch Brandy

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 100 years in which either name was published, Brandy for 77 years and Branch for 23 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Branch Brandy
Total US births 1,063108,861
Most in one year 926,963
Babies in 2025 3358
Estimated living today 910105,000
Median age today 744
Peak year 20181981
Best rank 1,707th boys41st girls
Rank in 2025 3,450th3,067th
First recorded 18891942
Girls / boys 0 / 1,063106,559 / 2,302

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 Brandys alive today are over 44; half the Branches are over 7. That is 37 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Branch and Brandy.