Humanverse

Cliffton vs Clinton

American parents have registered 98,005 Clintons since 1880, against 1,872 Clifftons. Clinton is still ahead, with 94 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Cliffton against Clinton, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Cliffton Clinton

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

Clinton 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 Clinton had 234.

Side by side

  Cliffton Clinton
Total US births 1,87298,005
Most in one year 672,222
Babies in 2025 694
Estimated living today 1,60064,000
Median age today 4447
Peak year 19821981
Best rank 1,115th boys124th boys
Rank in 2025 10,695th1,728th
First recorded 19121880
Girls / boys 0 / 1,872438 / 97,567

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 Clintons alive today are over 47; half the Clifftons are over 44. That is 3 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 Clinton.