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Kennedy vs Kenzai

American parents have registered 101,120 Kennedys since 1880, against 79 Kenzais. Kennedy is still ahead, with 3,019 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kennedy against Kenzai, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kennedy Kenzai

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

Kennedy has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1912 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2025, when Kennedy had 3,019 and Kenzai had 42.

Side by side

  Kennedy Kenzai
Total US births 101,12079
Most in one year 4,68842
Babies in 2025 3,01942
Estimated living today 100,00080
Median age today 130
Peak year 20152025
Best rank 58th girls2,941st boys
Rank in 2025 85th2,941st
First recorded 19122024
Girls / boys 93,663 / 7,4570 / 79

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 Kennedys alive today are over 13; half the Kenzais have not had a first birthday. That is 13 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 Kennedy Kenzai
England and Wales 1,3099

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: Kennedy and Kenzai.