Humanverse

Rea vs Reagen

American parents have registered 2,063 Reas since 1880, against 714 Reagens. Rea is still ahead, with 24 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rea against Reagen, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rea Reagen

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 125 years in which either name was published, Rea for 105 years and Reagen for 20 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Rea Reagen
Total US births 2,063714
Most in one year 3443
Babies in 2025 24under 5
Estimated living today 1,200710
Median age today 4318
Peak year 19582008
Best rank 2,073rd girls4,360th girls
Rank in 2025 5,238thunranked
First recorded 18921974
Girls / boys 1,873 / 190638 / 76

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 Reas alive today are over 43; half the Reagens are over 18. That is 25 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 Rea Reagen
England and Wales 35438

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: Rea and Reagen.