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Delores vs Delphus

American parents have registered 118,251 Deloreses since 1880, against 17 Delphuses. Delores is still ahead, with 21 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Delores Delphus

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 1939, when Delores had 3,035 and Delphus had 6.

Side by side

  Delores Delphus
Total US births 118,25117
Most in one year 4,1716
Babies in 2025 21under 5
Estimated living today 53,0004
Median age today 7586
Peak year 19321934
Best rank 56th girls3,277th boys
Rank in 2025 5,722ndunranked
First recorded 18901934
Girls / boys 117,821 / 4300 / 17

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 Delphuses alive today are over 86; half the Deloreses are over 75. That is 11 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: Delores and Delphus.