Humanverse

Hamid vs Hamish

American parents have registered 928 Hamids since 1880, against 364 Hamishes. Hamid is still ahead, with 17 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hamid against Hamish, 1880 to 2025 0 8 16 24 32 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hamid Hamish

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 56 years in which either name was published, Hamid for 51 years and Hamish for 5 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Hamid Hamish
Total US births 928364
Most in one year 2825
Babies in 2025 1714
Estimated living today 900360
Median age today 2310
Peak year 20212017
Best rank 3,814th boys4,105th boys
Rank in 2025 5,399th6,143rd
First recorded 19661981
Girls / boys 0 / 9280 / 364

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 Hamids alive today are over 23; half the Hamishes are over 10. That is 13 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 Hamid Hamish
England and Wales 5232,964
Ireland 322

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: Hamid and Hamish.