Humanverse

Hillary vs Hilton

American parents have registered 30,305 Hillarys since 1880, against 6,990 Hiltons. Hillary is still ahead, with 67 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hillary against Hilton, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hillary Hilton

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 140 years in which either name was published, Hillary for 76 years and Hilton for 64 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Hillary Hilton
Total US births 30,3056,990
Most in one year 2,527143
Babies in 2025 6718
Estimated living today 29,0003,100
Median age today 3756
Peak year 19921920
Best rank 132nd girls521st boys
Rank in 2025 2,583rd6,446th
First recorded 18881882
Girls / boys 29,043 / 1,26265 / 6,925

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 Hiltons alive today are over 56; half the Hillarys are over 37. That is 19 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 Hillary Hilton
France 36555
England and Wales 12395

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: Hillary and Hilton.