Humanverse

Dessie vs Destinee

American parents have registered 16,800 Destinees since 1880, against 11,731 Dessies. Destinee is still ahead, with 54 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Dessie against Destinee, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Dessie Destinee

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 146 years in which either name was published, Dessie for 99 years and Destinee for 47 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Dessie Destinee
Total US births 11,73116,800
Most in one year 3151,002
Babies in 2025 754
Estimated living today 2,40017,000
Median age today 7025
Peak year 19181999
Best rank 370th girls308th girls
Rank in 2025 11,932nd3,028th
First recorded 18801973
Girls / boys 11,414 / 31716,800 / 0

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 Dessies alive today are over 70; half the Destinees are over 25. 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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