Humanverse

Cookie vs Cooper

American parents have registered 126,484 Coopers since 1880, against 573 Cookies. Cooper is still ahead, with 7,653 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Cookie Cooper

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 128 years in which either name was published, Cooper for 110 years and Cookie for 18 years. The lead changed hands 8 times.

Side by side

  Cookie Cooper
Total US births 573126,484
Most in one year 357,653
Babies in 2025 under 57,653
Estimated living today 460125,000
Median age today 6711
Peak year 19582025
Best rank 1,856th girls27th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked27th
First recorded 19401882
Girls / boys 573 / 02,782 / 123,702

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 Cookies alive today are over 67; half the Coopers are over 11. That is 56 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Cookie and Cooper.