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Hamish vs Hamza

American parents have registered 10,573 Hamzas since 1880, against 364 Hamishes. Hamza is still ahead, with 556 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hamish against Hamza, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hamish Hamza

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

Hamza has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1977 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1981, when Hamish had 5 and Hamza had 6.

Side by side

  Hamish Hamza
Total US births 36410,573
Most in one year 25565
Babies in 2025 14556
Estimated living today 36010,000
Median age today 1011
Peak year 20172024
Best rank 4,105th boys527th boys
Rank in 2025 6,143rd541st
First recorded 19811977
Girls / boys 0 / 3640 / 10,573

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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Hamish Hamza
England and Wales 2,9648,949
Scotland 2,598232
Ireland 22186
Northern Ireland 103

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: Hamish and Hamza.