Perez vs Persephone

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Perez Persephone

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 70 years in which either name was published, Persephone for 42 years and Perez for 28 years. The lead changed hands 15 times.

• 1954–1971 Perez ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1976–1978 Persephone ahead
• 1982–1995 Perez ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1996–2025 Persephone ahead

10 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

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 Perezes alive today are over 34; half the Persephones are over 6. That is 28 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.

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

• Perez vs Perry
• Perez vs Percy
• Perez vs Perla
• Perez vs Pernell
• Perez vs Perri
• Persephone vs Perry
• Persephone vs Percy
• Persephone vs Perla