Humanverse

Gregory vs Greig

American parents have registered 714,753 Gregorys since 1880, against 384 Greigs. Gregory is still ahead, with 493 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Gregory against Greig, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Gregory Greig

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

Gregory has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1938, when Gregory had 536 and Greig had 8.

Side by side

  Gregory Greig
Total US births 714,753384
Most in one year 22,06323
Babies in 2025 493under 5
Estimated living today 576,000270
Median age today 5666
Peak year 19621957
Best rank 21st boys1,673rd boys
Rank in 2025 593rdunranked
First recorded 18801938
Girls / boys 2,860 / 711,8930 / 384

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 Greigs alive today are over 66; half the Gregorys are over 56. That is 10 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Gregory Greig
England and Wales 2,9444
Scotland 4551,656

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: Gregory and Greig.