Humanverse

Caitlyn vs Caitlynn

American parents have registered 52,637 Caitlyns since 1880, against 4,947 Caitlynns. Caitlyn is still ahead, with 71 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Caitlyn against Caitlynn, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Caitlyn Caitlynn

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

Caitlyn has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1968 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2020, when Caitlyn had 127 and Caitlynn had 30.

Side by side

  Caitlyn Caitlynn
Total US births 52,6374,947
Most in one year 2,943297
Babies in 2025 7111
Estimated living today 52,0004,900
Median age today 2624
Peak year 19981998
Best rank 115th girls734th girls
Rank in 2025 2,485th8,860th
First recorded 19681985
Girls / boys 52,603 / 344,947 / 0

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 Caitlyns alive today are over 26; half the Caitlynns are over 24. 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 Caitlyn Caitlynn
England and Wales 5,33380
Scotland 1,18915
Belgium 1045

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: Caitlyn and Caitlynn.