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Catalia vs Catherine

American parents have registered 669,611 Catherines since 1880, against 281 Catalias. Catherine is still ahead, with 972 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Catalia against Catherine, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Catalia Catherine

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

Catherine 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 2024, when Catalia had 18 and Catherine had 956.

Side by side

  Catalia Catherine
Total US births 281669,611
Most in one year 3512,075
Babies in 2025 17972
Estimated living today 280381,000
Median age today 858
Peak year 20121956
Best rank 4,216th girls28th girls
Rank in 2025 6,546th313th
First recorded 20121880
Girls / boys 281 / 0667,789 / 1,822

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 Catherines alive today are over 58; half the Catalias are over 8. That is 50 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 Catalia Catherine
France 140394,885

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: Catalia and Catherine.