Humanverse

Byrl vs Byrum

American parents have registered 586 Byrls since 1880, against 9 Byrums. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Byrl Byrum

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

Byrl has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1907 to 1958. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1919, when Byrl had 23 and Byrum had 9.

Side by side

  Byrl Byrum
Total US births 5869
Most in one year 309
Babies in 2025 under 5under 5
Estimated living today 800
Median age today 80106
Peak year 19171919
Best rank 1,437th boys2,877th boys
Rank in 2025 unrankedunranked
First recorded 19071919
Girls / boys 53 / 5330 / 9

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 Byrums alive today are over 106; half the Byrls are over 80. That is 26 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: Byrl and Byrum.