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Kent vs Kenyata

American parents have registered 69,493 Kents since 1880, against 1,126 Kenyatas. Kent is still ahead, with 101 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Kent Kenyata

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

Kent has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1885 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2004, when Kent had 159 and Kenyata had 21.

Side by side

  Kent Kenyata
Total US births 69,4931,126
Most in one year 2,59264
Babies in 2025 101under 5
Estimated living today 50,0001,100
Median age today 6141
Peak year 19621985
Best rank 136th boys2,283rd girls
Rank in 2025 1,654thunranked
First recorded 18851971
Girls / boys 171 / 69,322820 / 306

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 Kents alive today are over 61; half the Kenyatas are over 41. That is 20 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Kent and Kenyata.