Humanverse

Rich vs Rickie

American parents have registered 18,237 Rickies since 1880, against 4,407 Riches. But in 2025 it was Rich that was commoner, 27 babies to 27.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rich against Rickie, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rich Rickie

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 130 years in which either name was published, Rickie for 81 years and Rich for 49 years. The lead changed hands 12 times.

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

Side by side

  Rich Rickie
Total US births 4,40718,237
Most in one year 2561,055
Babies in 2025 2727
Estimated living today 3,30014,000
Median age today 6064
Peak year 19621954
Best rank 496th boys218th boys
Rank in 2025 3,949th6,446th
First recorded 18801896
Girls / boys 0 / 4,4071,854 / 16,383

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 Rickies alive today are over 64; half the Riches are over 60. That is 4 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

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

Country Rich Rickie
England and Wales 642

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: Rich and Rickie.