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Tara vs Tarry

American parents have registered 176,355 Taras since 1880, against 619 Tarrys. Tara is still ahead, with 322 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Tara Tarry

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

Tara has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1939 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1943, when Tara had 24 and Tarry had 19.

Side by side

  Tara Tarry
Total US births 176,355619
Most in one year 7,26829
Babies in 2025 322under 5
Estimated living today 168,000470
Median age today 4463
Peak year 19721968
Best rank 38th girls1,788th boys
Rank in 2025 844thunranked
First recorded 19391940
Girls / boys 175,812 / 543189 / 430

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 Tarrys alive today are over 63; half the Taras are over 44. That is 19 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Tara and Tarry.