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Frances vs Francisco

American parents have registered 600,721 Franceses since 1880, against 143,146 Franciscos. But in 2025 it was Francisco that was commoner, 1,069 babies to 966.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Frances against Francisco, 1880 to 2025 0 5k 10k 15k 20k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Frances Francisco

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, Frances for 92 years and Francisco for 54 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Frances Francisco
Total US births 600,721143,146
Most in one year 16,2292,995
Babies in 2025 9661,069
Estimated living today 178,000123,000
Median age today 7330
Peak year 19181993
Best rank 8th girls119th boys
Rank in 2025 318th322nd
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 595,697 / 5,024954 / 142,192

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 Franceses alive today are over 73; half the Franciscos are over 30. That is 43 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 Frances Francisco
France 1407,545
England and Wales 3,529696
Ireland 2,50929
Scotland 1,0653
Belgium 337106
Poland 453
Northern Ireland 443

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: Frances and Francisco.