Humanverse

Fate vs Fatima

American parents have registered 38,991 Fatimas since 1880, against 1,329 Fates. Fatima is still ahead, with 931 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Fate against Fatima, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Fate Fatima

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 145 years in which either name was published, Fatima for 80 years and Fate for 65 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Fate Fatima
Total US births 1,32938,991
Most in one year 351,517
Babies in 2025 under 5931
Estimated living today 42038,000
Median age today 2618
Peak year 19192006
Best rank 1,188th boys228th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked330th
First recorded 18801919
Girls / boys 143 / 1,18638,945 / 46

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 Fates alive today are over 26; half the Fatimas are over 18. That is 8 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: Fate and Fatima.