Humanverse

Brandon vs Brayden

American parents have registered 774,654 Brandons since 1880, against 137,606 Braydens. But in 2025 it was Brayden that was commoner, 1,545 babies to 1,326.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Brandon against Brayden, 1880 to 2025 0 8k 16k 24k 32k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Brandon Brayden

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 111 years in which either name was published, Brandon for 95 years and Brayden for 16 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Brandon Brayden
Total US births 774,654137,606
Most in one year 29,7249,168
Babies in 2025 1,3261,545
Estimated living today 742,000136,000
Median age today 3214
Peak year 19922010
Best rank 6th boys40th boys
Rank in 2025 261st229th
First recorded 19141970
Girls / boys 4,145 / 770,5091,058 / 136,548

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 Brandons alive today are over 32; half the Braydens are over 14. That is 18 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 Brandon Brayden
England and Wales 26,4441,822
France 11,160245
Scotland 2,272230
Ireland 1,566125
Belgium 1,4236
New Zealand 1,000317
Northern Ireland 61541

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: Brandon and Brayden.