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Darien vs Darlene

American parents have registered 205,546 Darlenes since 1880, against 12,826 Dariens. But in 2025 it was Darien that was commoner, 125 babies to 108.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Darien 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 94 years and Darien for 33 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Darien Darlene
Total US births 12,826205,546
Most in one year 7718,307
Babies in 2025 125108
Estimated living today 12,000143,000
Median age today 2667
Peak year 19941958
Best rank 383rd boys49th girls
Rank in 2025 1,436th1,844th
First recorded 19371896
Girls / boys 1,849 / 10,977204,942 / 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 Dariens are over 26. That is 41 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 Darien Darlene
England and Wales 14072

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: Darien and Darlene.