Humanverse

Kindle vs Kingston

American parents have registered 46,599 Kingstons since 1880, against 582 Kindles. Kingston is still ahead, with 1,725 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kindle against Kingston, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kindle Kingston

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 66 years in which either name was published, Kingston for 56 years and Kindle for 10 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Kindle Kingston
Total US births 58246,599
Most in one year 413,422
Babies in 2025 under 51,725
Estimated living today 57046,000
Median age today 188
Peak year 20112021
Best rank 4,568th girls112th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked204th
First recorded 19641919
Girls / boys 540 / 42193 / 46,406

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 Kindles alive today are over 18; half the Kingstons are over 8. That is 10 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: Kindle and Kingston.