Humanverse

Mandy vs Manual

American parents have registered 42,603 Mandys since 1880, against 1,021 Manuals. Mandy is still ahead, with 31 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mandy against Manual, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mandy Manual

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

Mandy 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 1929, when Mandy had 47 and Manual had 18.

Side by side

  Mandy Manual
Total US births 42,6031,021
Most in one year 3,12423
Babies in 2025 31under 5
Estimated living today 37,000510
Median age today 4553
Peak year 19781928
Best rank 96th girls1,569th boys
Rank in 2025 4,460thunranked
First recorded 18801910
Girls / boys 42,465 / 1380 / 1,021

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 Manuals alive today are over 53; half the Mandys are over 45. That is 8 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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