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Billee vs Billie

American parents have registered 135,300 Billies since 1880, against 619 Billees. Billie is still ahead, with 422 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Billee against Billie, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Billee Billie

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

Billie 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 1995, when Billee had 7 and Billie had 267.

Side by side

  Billee Billie
Total US births 619135,300
Most in one year 224,715
Babies in 2025 under 5422
Estimated living today 27059,000
Median age today 6665
Peak year 19561930
Best rank 2,389th girls79th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked691st
First recorded 19151880
Girls / boys 614 / 5103,663 / 31,637

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: Billee and Billie.