Humanverse

Real

Real reached its high-water mark in 1926 at number 2,302, and has been recorded 421 times in all. It has not appeared in the national data since 2024. About 210 Reals are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 25.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 4 8 12 16 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Real boys named Real

By the numbers

Total US births
421
Estimated living today
210
Median age today
25
Peak year
1926
Best rank
2,302nd
Rank in 2025
unranked
First recorded
1918
Girls / boys
26 / 395

How old the living Reals are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 4 8 12 16 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 421 babies given the name since 1918, about 210 are alive — 50 in every hundred. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2000 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where Real is most common

  • ME1.56
  • NH0.57
  • MA0.06

Across the country Real is recorded 0.01 times per 100,000 births, so these are the states above that line. Only states with 50 or more recorded Reals are ranked here: below that a handful of births makes a rate that moves on chance alone.

  • ME23
  • NH6
  • MA5

Counts favour the big states, which is why the same few lead this list for almost every name.

Births recorded in each state since 1910. A name given to fewer than five babies in one state in one year is not published, so a name's quietest states are missing from this rather than showing zero. Browse names by state.

Names of 1926

The most popular boys’ names the year Real peaked:

All the names of 1926

Real elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
France boys Real 50 4,927th

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Related names

Real against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Real with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.