Humanverse

China vs Chisom

American parents have registered 4,618 Chinas since 1880, against 755 Chisoms. But in 2025 it was Chisom that was commoner, 22 babies to 8.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: China against Chisom, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

China Chisom

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 118 years in which either name was published, China for 109 years and Chisom for 9 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  China Chisom
Total US births 4,618755
Most in one year 24537
Babies in 2025 822
Estimated living today 4,200750
Median age today 3115
Peak year 19922015
Best rank 816th girls4,584th girls
Rank in 2025 10,917th7,491st
First recorded 18851989
Girls / boys 4,608 / 10532 / 223

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 Chinas alive today are over 31; half the Chisoms are over 15. That is 16 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 China Chisom
England and Wales 166337
France 55

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: China and Chisom.