Humanverse

Riddick vs Ridley

American parents have registered 2,892 Ridleys since 1880, against 662 Riddicks. Ridley is still ahead, with 166 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Riddick against Ridley, 1880 to 2025 0 60 120 180 240 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Riddick Ridley

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 58 years in which either name was published, Ridley for 55 years and Riddick for 3 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Riddick Ridley
Total US births 6622,892
Most in one year 52213
Babies in 2025 17166
Estimated living today 6502,800
Median age today 117
Peak year 20162021
Best rank 2,437th boys1,750th boys
Rank in 2025 5,399th2,077th
First recorded 19221915
Girls / boys 0 / 6621,364 / 1,528

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 Riddicks alive today are over 11; half the Ridleys are over 7. That is 4 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 Riddick Ridley
England and Wales 6253
France 555

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: Riddick and Ridley.