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Calise vs Callan

American parents have registered 12,634 Callans since 1880, against 510 Calises. Callan is still ahead, with 1,983 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Calise against Callan, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Calise Callan

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

Of the 50 years in which either name was published, Callan for 49 years and Calise for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Calise Callan
Total US births 51012,634
Most in one year 321,983
Babies in 2025 161,983
Estimated living today 51013,000
Median age today 134
Peak year 20152025
Best rank 4,403rd girls190th boys
Rank in 2025 6,838th190th
First recorded 19791957
Girls / boys 510 / 01,470 / 11,164

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 Calises alive today are over 13; half the Callans are over 4. That is 9 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 Calise Callan
England and Wales 231,220

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: Calise and Callan.