Padraic vs Padraig
American parents have registered 973 Padraics since 1880, against 802 Padraigs. But in 2025 it was Padraig that was commoner, 7 babies to fewer than five.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Padraic Padraig
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 71 years in which either name was published, Padraic for 44 years and Padraig for 27 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.
Side by side
| Padraic | Padraig | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 973 | 802 |
| Most in one year | 36 | 57 |
| Babies in 2025 | under 5 | 7 |
| Estimated living today | 900 | 790 |
| Median age today | 37 | 17 |
| Peak year | 1982 | 2009 |
| Best rank | 1,654th boys | 2,287th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | unranked | 9,714th |
| First recorded | 1955 | 1982 |
| Girls / boys | 0 / 973 | 0 / 802 |
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 Padraics alive today are over 37; half the Padraigs are over 17. That is 20 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 | Padraic | Padraig |
|---|---|---|
| Ireland | 1,528 | 5,567 |
| Northern Ireland | 20 | 824 |
| England and Wales | 40 | 261 |
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: Padraic and Padraig.