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Kataleya vs Kathleen

American parents have registered 715,336 Kathleens since 1880, against 4,780 Kataleyas. But in 2025 it was Kataleya that was commoner, 674 babies to 201.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Kataleya Kathleen

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 146 years in which either name was published, Kathleen for 139 years and Kataleya for 7 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kataleya Kathleen
Total US births 4,780715,336
Most in one year 67426,749
Babies in 2025 674201
Estimated living today 4,800509,000
Median age today 467
Peak year 20251951
Best rank 458th girls10th girls
Rank in 2025 458th1,150th
First recorded 20111880
Girls / boys 4,780 / 0713,645 / 1,691

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 Kathleens alive today are over 67; half the Kataleyas are over 4. That is 63 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 Kataleya Kathleen
France 1,8405,185
Ireland 126,266
England and Wales 1462,013
Belgium 104290
Switzerland 5677
Poland 165

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: Kataleya and Kathleen.