Humanverse

Collin vs Colman

American parents have registered 81,962 Collins since 1880, against 1,045 Colmans. Collin is still ahead, with 619 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Collin against Colman, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Collin Colman

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, Collin for 111 years and Colman for 8 years. The lead changed hands 12 times.

9 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Collin Colman
Total US births 81,9621,045
Most in one year 3,36927
Babies in 2025 6198
Estimated living today 79,000640
Median age today 2325
Peak year 19962002
Best rank 115th boys3,259th boys
Rank in 2025 493rd8,910th
First recorded 18951909
Girls / boys 525 / 81,4370 / 1,045

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 Colmans alive today are over 25; half the Collins are over 23. That is 2 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 Collin Colman
Ireland 3387
France 1505
England and Wales 643

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: Collin and Colman.