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Cortnee vs Cory

American parents have registered 133,778 Corys since 1880, against 617 Cortnees. Cory is still ahead, with 174 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Cortnee Cory

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

Cory has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1924 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2002, when Cortnee had 19 and Cory had 1,149.

Side by side

  Cortnee Cory
Total US births 617133,778
Most in one year 446,660
Babies in 2025 under 5174
Estimated living today 600125,000
Median age today 3438
Peak year 19911989
Best rank 2,703rd girls61st boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,244th
First recorded 19751924
Girls / boys 617 / 06,599 / 127,179

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 Corys alive today are over 38; half the Cortnees are over 34. That is 4 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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