Humanverse

Kenny vs Kenton

American parents have registered 52,479 Kennys since 1880, against 11,280 Kentons. Kenny is still ahead, with 161 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kenny against Kenton, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kenny Kenton

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 116 years in which either name was published, Kenny for 105 years and Kenton for 11 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Kenny Kenton
Total US births 52,47911,280
Most in one year 1,949188
Babies in 2025 16192
Estimated living today 42,0009,300
Median age today 5035
Peak year 19602014
Best rank 169th boys1,054th boys
Rank in 2025 1,267th1,753rd
First recorded 19081912
Girls / boys 548 / 51,9310 / 11,280

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 Kennys alive today are over 50; half the Kentons are over 35. That is 15 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 Kenny Kenton
England and Wales 1,188138

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: Kenny and Kenton.