Courtenay vs Courtny

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Courtenay Courtny

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 62 years in which either name was published, Courtenay for 45 years and Courtny for 17 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

• 1915–1991 Courtenay ahead
• 1992–2001 Courtny ahead
• 2002 Courtenay ahead
• 2003–2010 Courtny ahead

Side by side

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 Courtenays alive today are over 46; half the Courtnys are over 33. That is 13 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.

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

• Courtenay vs Courtney
• Courtenay vs Courtland
• Courtenay vs Courtnie
• Courtenay vs Courtnee
• Courtenay vs Courteney
• Courtenay vs Courtni
• Courtny vs Courtney
• Courtny vs Courtland