Humanverse

Deacon vs Deana

American parents have registered 23,476 Deanas since 1880, against 11,570 Deacons. But in 2025 it was Deacon that was commoner, 529 babies to 13.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Deacon against Deana, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Deacon Deana

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 114 years in which either name was published, Deana for 89 years and Deacon for 25 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Deacon Deana
Total US births 11,57023,476
Most in one year 7341,363
Babies in 2025 52913
Estimated living today 11,00021,000
Median age today 954
Peak year 20141970
Best rank 420th boys232nd girls
Rank in 2025 561st7,885th
First recorded 19711905
Girls / boys 0 / 11,57023,462 / 14

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 Deanas alive today are over 54; half the Deacons are over 9. That is 45 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 Deacon Deana
England and Wales 1,771147
Ireland 178
France 515

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: Deacon and Deana.