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Katey vs Katie

American parents have registered 241,784 Katies since 1880, against 2,359 Kateys. Katie is still ahead, with 447 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Katey against Katie, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Katey Katie

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

Katie has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1999, when Katey had 70 and Katie had 3,550.

Side by side

  Katey Katie
Total US births 2,359241,784
Most in one year 1058,371
Babies in 2025 under 5447
Estimated living today 2,300196,000
Median age today 3336
Peak year 19921986
Best rank 1,499th girls38th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked646th
First recorded 19491880
Girls / boys 2,359 / 0241,285 / 499

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 Katies alive today are over 36; half the Kateys are over 33. That is 3 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 Katey Katie
England and Wales 20753,212
Ireland 312,634
Scotland 319,295

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: Katey and Katie.