Humanverse

Grace vs Grayson

American parents have registered 536,340 Graces since 1880, against 133,184 Graysons. But in 2025 it was Grayson that was commoner, 5,857 babies to 5,139.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Grace against Grayson, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Grace Grayson

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 146 years in which either name was published, Grace for 135 years and Grayson for 11 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Grace Grayson
Total US births 536,340133,184
Most in one year 12,8018,850
Babies in 2025 5,1395,857
Estimated living today 313,000131,000
Median age today 218
Peak year 20032017
Best rank 13th girls34th boys
Rank in 2025 38th51st
First recorded 18801905
Girls / boys 534,935 / 1,4054,190 / 128,994

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 Graces alive today are over 21; half the Graysons are over 8. That is 13 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 Grace Grayson
England and Wales 80,5208,135
Ireland 13,627224
New Zealand 6,920695
Scotland 6,311811
Northern Ireland 4,605110
France 4,46560

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: Grace and Grayson.