Humanverse

Curran vs Curtis

American parents have registered 262,876 Curtises since 1880, against 1,188 Currans. Curtis is still ahead, with 232 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Curran against Curtis, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Curran Curtis

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

Curtis 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 2023, when Curran had 13 and Curtis had 257.

Side by side

  Curran Curtis
Total US births 1,188262,876
Most in one year 565,602
Babies in 2025 7232
Estimated living today 1,100175,000
Median age today 2755
Peak year 19931962
Best rank 1,601st boys73rd boys
Rank in 2025 9,714th984th
First recorded 19161880
Girls / boys 30 / 1,1582,322 / 260,554

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 Curtises alive today are over 55; half the Currans are over 27. That is 28 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 Curran Curtis
England and Wales 155,997

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: Curran and Curtis.