Humanverse

Christabel vs Christian

American parents have registered 473,843 Christians since 1880, against 795 Christabels. Christian is still ahead, with 3,668 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Christabel against Christian, 1880 to 2025 0 5k 10k 15k 20k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Christabel Christian

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

Christian 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 1901, when Christabel had 6 and Christian had 38.

Side by side

  Christabel Christian
Total US births 795473,843
Most in one year 3416,544
Babies in 2025 83,668
Estimated living today 670454,000
Median age today 1724
Peak year 20142000
Best rank 4,269th girls22nd boys
Rank in 2025 10,917th96th
First recorded 19011880
Girls / boys 795 / 019,875 / 453,968

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 Christians alive today are over 24; half the Christabels are over 17. That is 7 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 Christabel Christian
France 55405,870
England and Wales 4549,800
Ireland 81,617
Scotland 3671

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: Christabel and Christian.