Humanverse

May vs Maynor

American parents have registered 50,099 Mays since 1880, against 1,076 Maynors. May is still ahead, with 183 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: May against Maynor, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

May Maynor

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

May 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 2006, when May had 75 and Maynor had 46.

Side by side

  May Maynor
Total US births 50,0991,076
Most in one year 99156
Babies in 2025 18341
Estimated living today 11,0001,100
Median age today 4915
Peak year 19192022
Best rank 194th girls2,468th boys
Rank in 2025 1,229th2,991st
First recorded 18801926
Girls / boys 49,400 / 6990 / 1,076

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 Mays alive today are over 49; half the Maynors are over 15. That is 34 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: May and Maynor.