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Cainen vs Cairo

American parents have registered 9,999 Cairos since 1880, against 521 Cainens. Cairo is still ahead, with 1,000 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Cainen against Cairo, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Cainen Cairo

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

Cairo has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1979 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1997, when Cainen had 9 and Cairo had 15.

Side by side

  Cainen Cairo
Total US births 5219,999
Most in one year 501,157
Babies in 2025 111,000
Estimated living today 5209,900
Median age today 104
Peak year 20172022
Best rank 2,532nd boys306th boys
Rank in 2025 7,194th341st
First recorded 19941979
Girls / boys 0 / 521584 / 9,415

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 Cainens alive today are over 10; half the Cairos are over 4. That is 6 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Cainen and Cairo.