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Colleen vs Coltyn

American parents have registered 163,084 Colleens since 1880, against 1,611 Coltyns. Colleen is still ahead, with 60 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Colleen against Coltyn, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Colleen Coltyn

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

Colleen has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1901 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2012, when Colleen had 148 and Coltyn had 128.

Side by side

  Colleen Coltyn
Total US births 163,0841,611
Most in one year 4,560128
Babies in 2025 6028
Estimated living today 133,0001,600
Median age today 5813
Peak year 19642012
Best rank 94th girls1,328th boys
Rank in 2025 2,822nd3,848th
First recorded 19011989
Girls / boys 162,754 / 3300 / 1,611

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 Colleens alive today are over 58; half the Coltyns are over 13. That is 45 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: Colleen and Coltyn.