Humanverse

Riven vs Rivkah

American parents have registered 1,224 Rivkahs since 1880, against 513 Rivens. But in 2025 it was Riven that was commoner, 70 babies to 35.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Riven against Rivkah, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Riven Rivkah

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 59 years in which either name was published, Rivkah for 52 years and Riven for 7 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Riven Rivkah
Total US births 5131,224
Most in one year 7545
Babies in 2025 7035
Estimated living today 5101,200
Median age today 418
Peak year 20252023
Best rank 2,390th boys3,476th girls
Rank in 2025 2,390th4,067th
First recorded 20081955
Girls / boys 201 / 3121,224 / 0

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 Rivkahs alive today are over 18; half the Rivens are over 4. That is 14 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 Riven Rivkah
England and Wales 13265
France 155

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: Riven and Rivkah.