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Caleb vs Calise

American parents have registered 325,003 Calebs since 1880, against 510 Calises. Caleb is still ahead, with 5,217 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Caleb against Calise, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Caleb Calise

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

Caleb 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 1979, when Caleb had 860 and Calise had 5.

Side by side

  Caleb Calise
Total US births 325,003510
Most in one year 11,68432
Babies in 2025 5,21716
Estimated living today 317,000510
Median age today 1913
Peak year 20022015
Best rank 35th boys4,403rd girls
Rank in 2025 58th6,838th
First recorded 18801979
Girls / boys 653 / 324,350510 / 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 Calebs alive today are over 19; half the Calises are over 13. That is 6 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 Caleb Calise
England and Wales 16,17723

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: Caleb and Calise.