Humanverse

Ivo vs Ivor

American parents have registered 909 Ivors since 1880, against 854 Ivos. But in 2025 it was Ivo that was commoner, 11 babies to 10.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ivo Ivor

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 111 years in which either name was published, Ivor for 61 years and Ivo for 50 years. The lead changed hands 36 times.

26 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Ivo Ivor
Total US births 854909
Most in one year 1929
Babies in 2025 1110
Estimated living today 510420
Median age today 2041
Peak year 19221918
Best rank 1,827th boys1,596th boys
Rank in 2025 7,194th7,679th
First recorded 18941896
Girls / boys 5 / 84946 / 863

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 Ivors alive today are over 41; half the Ivos are over 20. That is 21 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 Ivo Ivor
England and Wales 731837
Ireland 12236
Scotland 25147

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: Ivo and Ivor.