Humanverse

Lindsey vs Linsay

American parents have registered 165,286 Lindseys since 1880, against 673 Linsays. Lindsey is still ahead, with 161 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Lindsey Linsay

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

Lindsey 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 2015, when Lindsey had 488 and Linsay had 6.

Side by side

  Lindsey Linsay
Total US births 165,286673
Most in one year 9,11950
Babies in 2025 161under 5
Estimated living today 158,000660
Median age today 3638
Peak year 19841984
Best rank 35th girls2,018th girls
Rank in 2025 1,367thunranked
First recorded 18801976
Girls / boys 157,551 / 7,735673 / 0

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 Linsays alive today are over 38; half the Lindseys are over 36. That is 2 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 Lindsey Linsay
France 1,820785
Scotland 1,256192

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: Lindsey and Linsay.