Humanverse

Kortez vs Kory

American parents have registered 15,723 Korys since 1880, against 816 Kortezes. Kory is still ahead, with 45 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Kortez Kory

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

Kory has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1952 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2020, when Kortez had 36 and Kory had 65.

Side by side

  Kortez Kory
Total US births 81615,723
Most in one year 36651
Babies in 2025 1445
Estimated living today 80015,000
Median age today 1536
Peak year 20201989
Best rank 3,136th boys373rd boys
Rank in 2025 6,143rd3,314th
First recorded 19781952
Girls / boys 0 / 8161,338 / 14,385

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 Korys alive today are over 36; half the Kortezes are over 15. That is 21 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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