Humanverse

Charlee vs Charlotte

American parents have registered 454,204 Charlottes since 1880, against 19,749 Charlees. Charlotte is still ahead, with 13,408 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Charlee against Charlotte, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Charlee Charlotte

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

Charlotte 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 2011, when Charlee had 729 and Charlotte had 6,431.

Side by side

  Charlee Charlotte
Total US births 19,749454,204
Most in one year 1,19613,408
Babies in 2025 76913,408
Estimated living today 20,000323,000
Median age today 913
Peak year 20192025
Best rank 280th girls2nd girls
Rank in 2025 417th2nd
First recorded 19141880
Girls / boys 19,268 / 481453,433 / 771

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 Charlottes alive today are over 13; half the Charlees are over 9. That is 4 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 Charlee Charlotte
France 85155,075
England and Wales 85590,072
Scotland 256,992
Ireland 373,739
Northern Ireland 142,212

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: Charlee and Charlotte.