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Ricahrd vs Richard

American parents have registered 2,587,082 Richards since 1880, against 207 Ricahrds. Richard is still ahead, with 1,505 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ricahrd against Richard, 1880 to 2025 0 15k 30k 45k 60k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ricahrd Richard

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

Richard 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 1988, when Ricahrd had 16 and Richard had 14,255.

Side by side

  Ricahrd Richard
Total US births 2072,587,082
Most in one year 1658,990
Babies in 2025 under 51,505
Estimated living today 1901.4 million
Median age today 4163
Peak year 19821946
Best rank 2,831st boys5th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked234th
First recorded 19681880
Girls / boys 0 / 2079,530 / 2,577,552

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 Richards alive today are over 63; half the Ricahrds are over 41. That is 22 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 Ricahrd Richard
Ireland 311,345

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: Ricahrd and Richard.