Humanverse

Dellene vs Delores

American parents have registered 118,251 Deloreses since 1880, against 92 Dellenes. Delores is still ahead, with 21 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Dellene against Delores, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Dellene Delores

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

Delores has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1890 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1967, when Dellene had 5 and Delores had 576.

Side by side

  Dellene Delores
Total US births 92118,251
Most in one year 174,171
Babies in 2025 under 521
Estimated living today 5053,000
Median age today 7175
Peak year 19361932
Best rank 1,873rd girls56th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked5,722nd
First recorded 19361890
Girls / boys 92 / 0117,821 / 430

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 Deloreses alive today are over 75; half the Dellenes are over 71. That is 4 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Dellene and Delores.