Humanverse

Greg vs Grey

American parents have registered 77,849 Gregs since 1880, against 7,108 Greys. But in 2025 it was Grey that was commoner, 253 babies to 21.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Greg against Grey, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Greg Grey

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 110 years in which either name was published, Greg for 80 years and Grey for 30 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Greg Grey
Total US births 77,8497,108
Most in one year 5,409445
Babies in 2025 21253
Estimated living today 61,0006,800
Median age today 629
Peak year 19612021
Best rank 77th boys717th boys
Rank in 2025 4,707th1,014th
First recorded 19151913
Girls / boys 143 / 77,7061,052 / 6,056

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 Gregs alive today are over 62; half the Greys are over 9. That is 53 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 Greg Grey
Scotland 3,3764
France 7955
England and Wales 450190

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: Greg and Grey.