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Abbigayle vs Abigail

American parents have registered 413,935 Abigails since 1880, against 1,324 Abbigayles. Abigail is still ahead, with 4,941 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Abbigayle against Abigail, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Abbigayle Abigail

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

Abigail 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 1999, when Abbigayle had 75 and Abigail had 11,703.

Side by side

  Abbigayle Abigail
Total US births 1,324413,935
Most in one year 8715,955
Babies in 2025 under 54,941
Estimated living today 1,300407,000
Median age today 2119
Peak year 20012003
Best rank 1,968th girls6th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked41st
First recorded 19861880
Girls / boys 1,324 / 0413,263 / 672

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 Abbigayles alive today are over 21; half the Abigails are over 19. That is 2 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 Abbigayle Abigail
England and Wales 2645,941

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: Abbigayle and Abigail.