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Guss vs Gustavo

American parents have registered 40,461 Gustavos since 1880, against 1,136 Gusses. Gustavo is still ahead, with 447 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Guss against Gustavo, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Guss Gustavo

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, Gustavo for 104 years and Guss for 42 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Guss Gustavo
Total US births 1,13640,461
Most in one year 391,295
Babies in 2025 under 5447
Estimated living today 11038,000
Median age today 7525
Peak year 19202000
Best rank 1,139th boys260th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked625th
First recorded 18801911
Girls / boys 0 / 1,136104 / 40,357

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 Gusses alive today are over 75; half the Gustavos are over 25. That is 50 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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