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Keiji vs Keith

American parents have registered 440,123 Keiths since 1880, against 173 Keijis. Keith is still ahead, with 311 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Keiji against Keith, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Keiji Keith

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

Keith has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1888 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2025, when Keiji had 6 and Keith had 311.

Side by side

  Keiji Keith
Total US births 173440,123
Most in one year 1512,483
Babies in 2025 6311
Estimated living today 140338,000
Median age today 1356
Peak year 20091957
Best rank 5,800th boys36th boys
Rank in 2025 10,695th800th
First recorded 19231888
Girls / boys 0 / 1732,216 / 437,907

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 Keiths alive today are over 56; half the Keijis are over 13. That is 43 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 Keiji Keith
France 45220

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: Keiji and Keith.