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Terrace vs Terrence

American parents have registered 72,939 Terrences since 1880, against 821 Terraces. Terrence is still ahead, with 107 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Terrace against Terrence, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Terrace Terrence

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

Terrence has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1886 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1974, when Terrace had 29 and Terrence had 1,116.

Side by side

  Terrace Terrence
Total US births 82172,939
Most in one year 291,508
Babies in 2025 under 5107
Estimated living today 72058,000
Median age today 4849
Peak year 19801955
Best rank 1,965th boys181st boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,585th
First recorded 19431886
Girls / boys 107 / 714527 / 72,412

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.

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