Humanverse

Ronan vs Ronnie

American parents have registered 191,119 Ronnies since 1880, against 20,938 Ronans. But in 2025 it was Ronan that was commoner, 1,428 babies to 317.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ronan against Ronnie, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ronan Ronnie

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 119 years in which either name was published, Ronnie for 100 years and Ronan for 19 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Ronan Ronnie
Total US births 20,938191,119
Most in one year 1,4286,382
Babies in 2025 1,428317
Estimated living today 21,000133,000
Median age today 763
Peak year 20251947
Best rank 247th boys61st boys
Rank in 2025 247th1,064th
First recorded 19591902
Girls / boys 259 / 20,6798,193 / 182,926

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 Ronnies alive today are over 63; half the Ronans are over 7. That is 56 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 Ronan Ronnie
England and Wales 3,88818,678
France 16,195245
Ireland 10,33481
Northern Ireland 2,22796
Scotland 1,278498

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: Ronan and Ronnie.