Humanverse

Romane vs Romeo

American parents have registered 26,864 Romeos since 1880, against 32 Romanes. Romeo is still ahead, with 1,129 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Romane Romeo

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

Romeo 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 1938, when Romane had 6 and Romeo had 64.

Side by side

  Romane Romeo
Total US births 3226,864
Most in one year 61,191
Babies in 2025 under 51,129
Estimated living today 3024,000
Median age today 2911
Peak year 19382024
Best rank 3,175th boys283rd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked301st
First recorded 19381880
Girls / boys 0 / 320 / 26,864

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 Romanes alive today are over 29; half the Romeos are over 11. That is 18 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 Romane Romeo
France 65,85515,055 Roméo
Belgium 3,1771,464 Roméo
England and Wales 303,379
Switzerland 6501,640

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: Romane and Romeo.