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Jamese vs Jami

American parents have registered 22,410 Jamis since 1880, against 775 Jameses. Jami is still ahead, with 6 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Jamese against Jami, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Jamese Jami

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

Jami has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1946 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2016, when Jamese had 5 and Jami had 8.

Side by side

  Jamese Jami
Total US births 77522,410
Most in one year 311,070
Babies in 2025 under 56
Estimated living today 76021,000
Median age today 3146
Peak year 19981977
Best rank 3,730th girls239th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked13,208th
First recorded 19681946
Girls / boys 775 / 021,473 / 937

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 Jamis alive today are over 46; half the Jameses are over 31. That is 15 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Jamese and Jami.