Humanverse

Gaia vs Gaige

American parents have registered 4,544 Gaiges since 1880, against 2,434 Gaias. But in 2025 it was Gaia that was commoner, 157 babies to 8.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Gaia against Gaige, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Gaia Gaige

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 41 years in which either name was published, Gaige for 28 years and Gaia for 13 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Gaia Gaige
Total US births 2,4344,544
Most in one year 219288
Babies in 2025 1578
Estimated living today 2,4004,500
Median age today 618
Peak year 20232007
Best rank 1,120th girls781st boys
Rank in 2025 1,388th8,910th
First recorded 19801989
Girls / boys 2,434 / 0127 / 4,417

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 Gaiges alive today are over 18; half the Gaias are over 6. That is 12 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 Gaia Gaige
England and Wales 1,03927

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: Gaia and Gaige.