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Caribe vs Carol

American parents have registered 825,584 Carols since 1880, against 20 Caribes. Carol is still ahead, with 82 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Caribe against Carol, 1880 to 2025 0 10k 20k 30k 40k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Caribe Carol

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

Carol 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 1975, when Caribe had 14 and Carol had 1,798.

Side by side

  Caribe Carol
Total US births 20825,584
Most in one year 1434,458
Babies in 2025 under 582
Estimated living today 18525,000
Median age today 5073
Peak year 19751946
Best rank 2,751st boys5th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,239th
First recorded 19751880
Girls / boys 0 / 20816,928 / 8,656

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 Carols alive today are over 73; half the Caribes are over 50. That is 23 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: Caribe and Carol.