Humanverse

Gabe vs Gaby

American parents have registered 4,110 Gabes since 1880, against 1,463 Gabys. But in 2025 it was Gaby that was commoner, 36 babies to 22.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Gabe against Gaby, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Gabe Gaby

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 138 years in which either name was published, Gabe for 130 years and Gaby for 8 years. The lead changed hands 7 times.

Side by side

  Gabe Gaby
Total US births 4,1101,463
Most in one year 12670
Babies in 2025 2236
Estimated living today 3,4001,400
Median age today 2117
Peak year 20052007
Best rank 1,253rd boys2,616th girls
Rank in 2025 4,539th3,975th
First recorded 18801920
Girls / boys 0 / 4,1101,437 / 26

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 Gabes alive today are over 21; half the Gabys are over 17. That is 4 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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Gabe Gaby
England and Wales 13352

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: Gabe and Gaby.