Brooks vs Brown
American parents have registered 59,639 Brookses since 1880, against 1,482 Browns. Brooks is still ahead, with 4,965 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Brooks Brown
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 146 years in which either name was published, Brooks for 130 years and Brown for 16 years. The lead changed hands 16 times.
- 1887–1893 Brown ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1897–1904 Brooks ahead
- 1908–1912 Brown ahead
- 1913–2025 Brooks ahead
12 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Brooks | Brown | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 59,639 | 1,482 |
| Most in one year | 4,965 | 55 |
| Babies in 2025 | 4,965 | 10 |
| Estimated living today | 56,000 | 300 |
| Median age today | 6 | 66 |
| Peak year | 2025 | 1918 |
| Best rank | 64th boys | 894th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 64th | 7,679th |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1881 |
| Girls / boys | 1,693 / 57,946 | 5 / 1,477 |
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 Browns alive today are over 66; half the Brookses are over 6. That is 60 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Brooks Utah (3.6×), Idaho (2.2×), North Dakota (2.1×)
- Brown Tennessee (15.0×), Mississippi (8.6×), Kentucky (8.3×)
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: Brooks and Brown.