Humanverse

Ulysee vs Ulysses

American parents have registered 18,680 Ulysseses since 1880, against 503 Ulysees. Ulysses is still ahead, with 169 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ulysee against Ulysses, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ulysee Ulysses

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

Ulysses 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 1939, when Ulysee had 19 and Ulysses had 144.

Side by side

  Ulysee Ulysses
Total US births 50318,680
Most in one year 19272
Babies in 2025 under 5169
Estimated living today 15012,000
Median age today 7433
Peak year 19391999
Best rank 1,532nd boys642nd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,196th
First recorded 19151880
Girls / boys 0 / 50325 / 18,655

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 Ulysees alive today are over 74; half the Ulysseses are over 33. That is 41 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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