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Danniel vs Danny

American parents have registered 288,341 Dannys since 1880, against 2,604 Danniels. Danny is still ahead, with 462 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Danniel against Danny, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Danniel Danny

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

Danny has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1900 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1923, when Danniel had 8 and Danny had 124.

Side by side

  Danniel Danny
Total US births 2,604288,341
Most in one year 519,126
Babies in 2025 9462
Estimated living today 2,200212,000
Median age today 4162
Peak year 19591954
Best rank 1,081st boys42nd boys
Rank in 2025 8,243rd628th
First recorded 19231900
Girls / boys 186 / 2,4181,693 / 286,648

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 Dannys alive today are over 62; half the Danniels are over 41. That is 21 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 Danniel Danny
England and Wales 128,517

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: Danniel and Danny.