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Darcy vs Darlene

American parents have registered 205,546 Darlenes since 1880, against 26,203 Darcys. But in 2025 it was Darcy that was commoner, 341 babies to 108.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Darcy Darlene

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

Of the 127 years in which either name was published, Darlene for 115 years and Darcy for 12 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Darcy Darlene
Total US births 26,203205,546
Most in one year 7618,307
Babies in 2025 341108
Estimated living today 24,000143,000
Median age today 4967
Peak year 19701958
Best rank 362nd girls49th girls
Rank in 2025 857th1,844th
First recorded 19151896
Girls / boys 23,418 / 2,785204,942 / 604

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 Darlenes alive today are over 67; half the Darcys are over 49. That is 18 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 Darcy Darlene
England and Wales 11,64172
Scotland 99936
France 185440
Ireland 54811

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: Darcy and Darlene.