Humanverse

Eric vs Ericka

American parents have registered 893,184 Erics since 1880, against 23,466 Erickas. Eric is still ahead, with 1,256 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Eric against Ericka, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Eric Ericka

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

Eric 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 2025, when Eric had 1,256 and Ericka had 66.

Side by side

  Eric Ericka
Total US births 893,18423,466
Most in one year 23,719910
Babies in 2025 1,25666
Estimated living today 797,00023,000
Median age today 4439
Peak year 19701971
Best rank 18th boys299th girls
Rank in 2025 273rd2,607th
First recorded 18801945
Girls / boys 4,293 / 888,89123,420 / 46

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 Erics alive today are over 44; half the Erickas are over 39. That is 5 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 Eric Ericka
France 321,1801,340
England and Wales 6,95436
Ireland 3,62162

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: Eric and Ericka.