Humanverse

Koe vs Koen

American parents have registered 5,190 Koens since 1880, against 565 Koes. Koen is still ahead, with 453 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Koe against Koen, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Koe Koen

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

Koen has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1996 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2021, when Koe had 75 and Koen had 219.

Side by side

  Koe Koen
Total US births 5655,190
Most in one year 120468
Babies in 2025 104453
Estimated living today 5605,100
Median age today 29
Peak year 20242023
Best rank 1,494th boys605th boys
Rank in 2025 1,621st622nd
First recorded 20181996
Girls / boys 0 / 56520 / 5,170

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 Koens alive today are over 9; half the Koes are over 2. That is 7 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

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