Humanverse

Cliff vs Cliodhna

American parents have registered 9,307 Cliffs since 1880, against 7 Cliodhnas. Cliff is still ahead, with 43 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Cliff Cliodhna

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

Cliff 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 2025, when Cliff had 43 and Cliodhna had 7.

Side by side

  Cliff Cliodhna
Total US births 9,3077
Most in one year 3107
Babies in 2025 437
Estimated living today 6,1007
Median age today 570
Peak year 19592025
Best rank 455th boys11,932nd girls
Rank in 2025 2,884th11,932nd
First recorded 18802025
Girls / boys 0 / 9,3077 / 0

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 Cliffs alive today are over 57; half the Cliodhnas have not had a first birthday. That is 57 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.

Country Cliff Cliodhna
Ireland 141,057
England and Wales 1065

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: Cliff and Cliodhna.