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Claude vs Claudius

American parents have registered 92,289 Claudes since 1880, against 928 Claudiuses. Claude is still ahead, with 40 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Claude against Claudius, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Claude Claudius

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

Claude 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 2013, when Claude had 43 and Claudius had 7.

Side by side

  Claude Claudius
Total US births 92,289928
Most in one year 1,91023
Babies in 2025 406
Estimated living today 28,000410
Median age today 6750
Peak year 19201916
Best rank 92nd boys1,459th boys
Rank in 2025 3,036th10,695th
First recorded 18801890
Girls / boys 952 / 91,3370 / 928

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 Claudes alive today are over 67; half the Claudiuses are over 50. That is 17 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Claude Claudius
France 468,3309,965
England and Wales 2173

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: Claude and Claudius.