Humanverse

Kendall vs Kendi

American parents have registered 101,883 Kendalls since 1880, against 668 Kendis. Kendall is still ahead, with 1,095 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kendall against Kendi, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kendall Kendi

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

Kendall has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1906 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1979, when Kendall had 451 and Kendi had 18.

Side by side

  Kendall Kendi
Total US births 101,883668
Most in one year 3,00431
Babies in 2025 1,09510
Estimated living today 96,000650
Median age today 2221
Peak year 20122007
Best rank 116th girls4,675th girls
Rank in 2025 328th9,457th
First recorded 19061962
Girls / boys 66,533 / 35,350644 / 24

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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Kendall Kendi
France 31025

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: Kendall and Kendi.