Humanverse

Lindsay vs Linkoln

American parents have registered 135,501 Lindsays since 1880, against 607 Linkolns. Lindsay is still ahead, with 84 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lindsay against Linkoln, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lindsay 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

Lindsay 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 2019, when Lindsay had 144 and Linkoln had 48.

Side by side

  Lindsay Linkoln
Total US births 135,501607
Most in one year 8,71365
Babies in 2025 8416
Estimated living today 129,000600
Median age today 388
Peak year 19832017
Best rank 36th girls2,109th boys
Rank in 2025 2,194th5,608th
First recorded 18802003
Girls / boys 130,365 / 5,1360 / 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 Lindsays alive today are over 38; half the Linkolns are over 8. That is 30 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 Lindsay Linkoln
England and Wales 29623

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: Lindsay and Linkoln.