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Kolby vs Kolson

American parents have registered 13,001 Kolbys since 1880, against 2,084 Kolsons. But in 2025 it was Kolson that was commoner, 269 babies to 207.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kolby against Kolson, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kolby Kolson

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 56 years in which either name was published, Kolby for 51 years and Kolson for 5 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kolby Kolson
Total US births 13,0012,084
Most in one year 781317
Babies in 2025 207269
Estimated living today 13,0002,100
Median age today 213
Peak year 20012024
Best rank 359th boys793rd boys
Rank in 2025 1,222nd883rd
First recorded 19682002
Girls / boys 1,351 / 11,6500 / 2,084

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 Kolbys alive today are over 21; half the Kolsons are over 3. That is 18 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 Kolby Kolson
England and Wales 2434
Scotland 313

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: Kolby and Kolson.