Humanverse

Kama vs Kami

American parents have registered 8,977 Kamis since 1880, against 710 Kamas. Kami is still ahead, with 46 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kama against Kami, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kama Kami

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 71 years in which either name was published, Kami for 69 years and Kama for 2 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kama Kami
Total US births 7108,977
Most in one year 39307
Babies in 2025 under 546
Estimated living today 6708,600
Median age today 4840
Peak year 19701980
Best rank 2,081st girls604th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked3,342nd
First recorded 19541957
Girls / boys 710 / 08,925 / 52

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 Kamas alive today are over 48; half the Kamis are over 40. That is 8 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 Kama Kami
France 22050
England and Wales 625

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: Kama and Kami.