Humanverse

Colbert vs Colton

American parents have registered 152,174 Coltons since 1880, against 839 Colberts. Colton is still ahead, with 3,426 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Colbert against Colton, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Colbert Colton

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 119 years in which either name was published, Colton for 68 years and Colbert for 51 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Colbert Colton
Total US births 839152,174
Most in one year 196,496
Babies in 2025 under 53,426
Estimated living today 410150,000
Median age today 5514
Peak year 19312013
Best rank 1,643rd boys65th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked103rd
First recorded 18861913
Girls / boys 0 / 839209 / 151,965

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 Colberts alive today are over 55; half the Coltons are over 14. That is 41 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 Colbert Colton
France 60010

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: Colbert and Colton.