Humanverse

Alvie vs Alvyn

American parents have registered 4,725 Alvies since 1880, against 33 Alvyns. Alvie is still ahead, with 13 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Alvie against Alvyn, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Alvie Alvyn

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

Of the 137 years in which either name was published, Alvie for 133 years and Alvyn for 4 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Alvie Alvyn
Total US births 4,72533
Most in one year 1317
Babies in 2025 13under 5
Estimated living today 1,30030
Median age today 6716
Peak year 19211932
Best rank 616th boys3,092nd boys
Rank in 2025 12,008thunranked
First recorded 18801932
Girls / boys 631 / 4,0940 / 33

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 Alvies alive today are over 67; half the Alvyns are over 16. That is 51 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Alvie Alvyn
England and Wales 2106

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: Alvie and Alvyn.