Humanverse

Christabel vs Christopher

American parents have registered 2,079,103 Christophers since 1880, against 795 Christabels. Christopher is still ahead, with 4,748 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Christabel against Christopher, 1880 to 2025 0 20k 40k 60k 80k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Christabel Christopher

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

Christopher 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 Christopher had 34.

Side by side

  Christabel Christopher
Total US births 7952,079,103
Most in one year 3460,411
Babies in 2025 84,748
Estimated living today 6701.9 million
Median age today 1741
Peak year 20141984
Best rank 4,269th girls2nd boys
Rank in 2025 10,917th68th
First recorded 19011880
Girls / boys 795 / 09,507 / 2,069,596

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 Christophers alive today are over 41; half the Christabels are over 17. That is 24 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 Christopher
France 5538,560
England and Wales 45427,096
Scotland 326,850
Ireland 814,157

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 Christopher.