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Hud vs Hudson

American parents have registered 116,169 Hudsons since 1880, against 87 Huds. Hudson is still ahead, with 8,666 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hud against Hudson, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hud Hudson

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

Hudson 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 1965, when Hud had 6 and Hudson had 9.

Side by side

  Hud Hudson
Total US births 87116,169
Most in one year 138,666
Babies in 2025 138,666
Estimated living today 80114,000
Median age today 67
Peak year 20252025
Best rank 6,446th boys17th boys
Rank in 2025 6,446th17th
First recorded 19641880
Girls / boys 0 / 871,882 / 114,287

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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Hud Hudson
England and Wales 7710,317
France 1515

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: Hud and Hudson.