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Doralee vs Dorothea

American parents have registered 34,427 Dorotheas since 1880, against 511 Doralees. Dorothea is still ahead, with 113 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Doralee Dorothea

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

Dorothea has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1983, when Doralee had 19 and Dorothea had 52.

Side by side

  Doralee Dorothea
Total US births 51134,427
Most in one year 201,110
Babies in 2025 under 5113
Estimated living today 2509,900
Median age today 6867
Peak year 19251920
Best rank 1,946th girls187th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked1,777th
First recorded 19161880
Girls / boys 511 / 034,421 / 6

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.

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