Humanverse

Kataleya vs Kathy

American parents have registered 334,870 Kathys since 1880, against 4,780 Kataleyas. But in 2025 it was Kataleya that was commoner, 674 babies to 48.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kataleya against Kathy, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kataleya Kathy

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 113 years in which either name was published, Kathy for 99 years and Kataleya for 14 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kataleya Kathy
Total US births 4,780334,870
Most in one year 67423,983
Babies in 2025 67448
Estimated living today 4,800275,000
Median age today 466
Peak year 20251958
Best rank 458th girls14th girls
Rank in 2025 458th3,249th
First recorded 20111910
Girls / boys 4,780 / 0334,131 / 739

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 Kathys alive today are over 66; half the Kataleyas are over 4. That is 62 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 Kathy
France 1,8404,565
Ireland 12327
England and Wales 146111
Belgium 10497

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 Kathy.