Humanverse

Nathan vs Naturelle

American parents have registered 589,271 Nathans since 1880, against 46 Naturelles. Nathan is still ahead, with 4,980 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Nathan Naturelle

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

Nathan 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 2004, when Nathan had 14,696 and Naturelle had 17.

Side by side

  Nathan Naturelle
Total US births 589,27146
Most in one year 14,69617
Babies in 2025 4,980under 5
Estimated living today 540,00050
Median age today 2720
Peak year 20042004
Best rank 20th boys6,768th girls
Rank in 2025 63rdunranked
First recorded 18802004
Girls / boys 1,774 / 587,49746 / 0

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 Nathans alive today are over 27; half the Naturelles are over 20. That is 7 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Nathan Naturelle
France 123,27515

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: Nathan and Naturelle.