Humanverse

Lina vs Linkoln

American parents have registered 19,494 Linas since 1880, against 607 Linkolns. Lina is still ahead, with 527 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lina against Linkoln, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lina Linkoln

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

Lina has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2017, when Lina had 375 and Linkoln had 65.

Side by side

  Lina Linkoln
Total US births 19,494607
Most in one year 53465
Babies in 2025 52716
Estimated living today 15,000600
Median age today 198
Peak year 20242017
Best rank 565th girls2,109th boys
Rank in 2025 572nd5,608th
First recorded 18802003
Girls / boys 19,489 / 50 / 607

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 Linas alive today are over 19; half the Linkolns are over 8. That is 11 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 Lina Linkoln
England and Wales 2,31923

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: Lina and Linkoln.