Humanverse

Lynda vs Lynnsey

American parents have registered 78,098 Lyndas since 1880, against 775 Lynnseys. Lynda is still ahead, with 30 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lynda against Lynnsey, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lynda Lynnsey

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

Lynda has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1882 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2024, when Lynda had 10 and Lynnsey had 5.

Side by side

  Lynda Lynnsey
Total US births 78,098775
Most in one year 4,85038
Babies in 2025 30under 5
Estimated living today 58,000760
Median age today 7032
Peak year 19471989
Best rank 77th girls2,879th girls
Rank in 2025 4,546thunranked
First recorded 18821978
Girls / boys 77,979 / 119775 / 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 Lyndas alive today are over 70; half the Lynnseys are over 32. That is 38 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 Lynda Lynnsey
Scotland 6623

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: Lynda and Lynnsey.