Humanverse

Mekai vs Mekenzie

American parents have registered 1,095 Mekenzies since 1880, against 563 Mekais. But in 2025 it was Mekai that was commoner, 13 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mekai against Mekenzie, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mekai Mekenzie

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

Of the 40 years in which either name was published, Mekenzie for 29 years and Mekai for 11 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Mekai Mekenzie
Total US births 5631,095
Most in one year 3687
Babies in 2025 13under 5
Estimated living today 5601,100
Median age today 1323
Peak year 20052000
Best rank 2,902nd boys1,938th girls
Rank in 2025 6,446thunranked
First recorded 19991984
Girls / boys 0 / 5631,095 / 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 Mekenzies alive today are over 23; half the Mekais are over 13. That is 10 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 Mekai Mekenzie
England and Wales 166

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: Mekai and Mekenzie.