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Mischa vs Missy

American parents have registered 5,776 Missys since 1880, against 1,891 Mischas. But in 2025 it was Mischa that was commoner, 26 babies to 21.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mischa against Missy, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mischa Missy

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 82 years in which either name was published, Missy for 60 years and Mischa for 22 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Mischa Missy
Total US births 1,8915,776
Most in one year 125303
Babies in 2025 2621
Estimated living today 1,8005,300
Median age today 1855
Peak year 20081967
Best rank 1,762nd girls540th girls
Rank in 2025 4,987th5,722nd
First recorded 19531943
Girls / boys 1,693 / 1985,776 / 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 Missys alive today are over 55; half the Mischas are over 18. That is 37 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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Mischa Missy
England and Wales 667435
France 75110
Scotland 4010

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: Mischa and Missy.