Humanverse

Gerard vs Gerrit

American parents have registered 58,932 Gerards since 1880, against 2,877 Gerrits. Gerard is still ahead, with 95 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Gerard against Gerrit, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Gerard Gerrit

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 138 years in which either name was published, Gerard for 136 years and Gerrit for 2 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Gerard Gerrit
Total US births 58,9322,877
Most in one year 1,61749
Babies in 2025 9516
Estimated living today 34,0001,800
Median age today 6234
Peak year 19561916
Best rank 180th boys892nd boys
Rank in 2025 1,708th5,608th
First recorded 18861881
Girls / boys 112 / 58,8200 / 2,877

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 Gerards alive today are over 62; half the Gerrits are over 34. That is 28 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 Gerard Gerrit
Belgium 107 Gérard19

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: Gerard and Gerrit.