Humanverse

Koran vs Kortney

American parents have registered 5,749 Kortneys since 1880, against 639 Korans. But in 2025 it was Koran that was commoner, 8 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Koran against Kortney, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Koran Kortney

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 59 years in which either name was published, Kortney for 52 years and Koran for 7 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Koran Kortney
Total US births 6395,749
Most in one year 31335
Babies in 2025 8under 5
Estimated living today 6205,600
Median age today 2332
Peak year 19991990
Best rank 2,722nd boys677th girls
Rank in 2025 8,910thunranked
First recorded 19751966
Girls / boys 10 / 6295,313 / 436

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 Kortneys alive today are over 32; half the Korans are over 23. That is 9 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Koran Kortney
England and Wales 314

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: Koran and Kortney.