Humanverse

Byrd vs Byron

American parents have registered 82,541 Byrons since 1880, against 962 Byrds. Byron is still ahead, with 233 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Byrd against Byron, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Byrd Byron

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

Byron 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 1889, when Byrd had 17 and Byron had 37.

Side by side

  Byrd Byron
Total US births 96282,541
Most in one year 331,289
Babies in 2025 under 5233
Estimated living today 10057,000
Median age today 7747
Peak year 19191964
Best rank 1,408th boys213th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked980th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 253 / 709303 / 82,238

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 Byrds alive today are over 77; half the Byrons are over 47. That is 30 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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