Humanverse

Hendrix vs Henry

American parents have registered 773,564 Henrys since 1880, against 14,396 Hendrixes. Henry is still ahead, with 12,040 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hendrix against Henry, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hendrix Henry

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

Henry 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 2021, when Hendrix had 1,355 and Henry had 11,385.

Side by side

  Hendrix Henry
Total US births 14,396773,564
Most in one year 1,35512,040
Babies in 2025 97512,040
Estimated living today 14,000385,000
Median age today 523
Peak year 20222025
Best rank 273rd boys5th boys
Rank in 2025 354th5th
First recorded 18851880
Girls / boys 856 / 13,5404,619 / 768,945

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 Henrys alive today are over 23; half the Hendrixes are over 5. That is 18 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 Hendrix Henry
England and Wales 1,43167,472
France 15512,205
Ireland 172,744
Switzerland 101,695
Scotland 211,671
Northern Ireland 10961

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: Hendrix and Henry.