Humanverse

Cleone vs Cleve

American parents have registered 4,529 Cleves since 1880, against 1,325 Cleones. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Cleone against Cleve, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Cleone Cleve

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

Cleve has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1882 to 2013. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1923, when Cleone had 49 and Cleve had 52.

Side by side

  Cleone Cleve
Total US births 1,3254,529
Most in one year 5083
Babies in 2025 under 5under 5
Estimated living today 2201,700
Median age today 8364
Peak year 19261951
Best rank 1,054th girls766th boys
Rank in 2025 unrankedunranked
First recorded 18901882
Girls / boys 1,320 / 523 / 4,506

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 Cleones alive today are over 83; half the Cleves are over 64. That is 19 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Cleone and Cleve.