Cicely vs Cicily

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Cicely Cicily

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 77 years in which either name was published, Cicely for 70 years and Cicily for 7 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

• 1917–1946 Cicely ahead
• 1948 Cicily ahead
• 1953–1970 Cicely ahead
• 1971 Cicily ahead
• 1972–2007 Cicely ahead
• 2008 Cicily ahead
• 2009–2013 Cicely ahead
• 2014 Cicily ahead
• 2015–2021 Cicely ahead
• 2022–2024 Cicily ahead
• 2025 Cicely ahead

Side by side

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 Cicelys alive today are over 45; half the Cicilys are over 34. That is 11 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.

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

• Cicely vs Cicero
• Cicily vs Cicero