Humanverse

Boy vs Boyd

American parents have registered 27,745 Boyds since 1880, against 923 Boys. Boyd is still ahead, with 78 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Boy against Boyd, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Boy Boyd

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

Boyd 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 2001, when Boy had 39 and Boyd had 40.

Side by side

  Boy Boyd
Total US births 92327,745
Most in one year 42508
Babies in 2025 1878
Estimated living today 87012,000
Median age today 1762
Peak year 20191922
Best rank 2,897th boys248th boys
Rank in 2025 5,208th1,959th
First recorded 19001880
Girls / boys 0 / 92365 / 27,680

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 Boyds alive today are over 62; half the Boys are over 17. That is 45 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: Boy and Boyd.