Germaine vs Gerry
American parents have registered 21,125 Gerrys since 1880, against 10,274 Germaines. But in 2025 it was Germaine that was commoner, 13 babies to 8.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Germaine Gerry
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 130 years in which either name was published, Gerry for 73 years and Germaine for 57 years. The lead changed hands 28 times.
- 1895–1929 Germaine ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1930–1971 Gerry ahead
- 1972–1977 Germaine ahead
- 1985–1996 Gerry ahead
- 2010–2012 Germaine ahead
- 2018–2021 Gerry ahead
22 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Germaine | Gerry | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 10,274 | 21,125 |
| Most in one year | 250 | 637 |
| Babies in 2025 | 13 | 8 |
| Estimated living today | 5,500 | 13,000 |
| Median age today | 53 | 66 |
| Peak year | 1928 | 1958 |
| Best rank | 480th girls | 336th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 13,208th | 8,910th |
| First recorded | 1895 | 1904 |
| Girls / boys | 7,910 / 2,364 | 6,657 / 14,468 |
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 Gerrys alive today are over 66; half the Germaines are over 53. That is 13 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Germaine Maine (15.5×), New Hampshire (13.3×), Rhode Island (6.1×)
- Gerry Indiana (1.8×), Michigan (1.6×), Missouri (1.6×)
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 | Germaine | Gerry |
|---|---|---|
| France | 211,020 | 155 |
| England and Wales | 28 | 199 |
| Ireland | 3 | 201 |
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: Germaine and Gerry.