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Cliffton vs Clifton

American parents have registered 70,685 Cliftons since 1880, against 1,872 Clifftons. Clifton is still ahead, with 82 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Cliffton against Clifton, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Cliffton Clifton

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

Clifton 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 2014, when Cliffton had 20 and Clifton had 119.

Side by side

  Cliffton Clifton
Total US births 1,87270,685
Most in one year 671,224
Babies in 2025 682
Estimated living today 1,60037,000
Median age today 4454
Peak year 19821975
Best rank 1,115th boys186th boys
Rank in 2025 10,695th1,906th
First recorded 19121880
Girls / boys 0 / 1,872436 / 70,249

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 Cliftons alive today are over 54; half the Clifftons are over 44. That is 10 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: Cliffton and Clifton.