Humanverse

Misk vs Misti

American parents have registered 8,324 Mistis since 1880, against 577 Misks. But in 2025 it was Misk that was commoner, 115 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Misk against Misti, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Misk Misti

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 68 years in which either name was published, Misti for 53 years and Misk for 15 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Misk Misti
Total US births 5778,324
Most in one year 115521
Babies in 2025 115under 5
Estimated living today 5707,900
Median age today 247
Peak year 20251975
Best rank 1,758th girls389th girls
Rank in 2025 1,758thunranked
First recorded 20101952
Girls / boys 577 / 08,324 / 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 Mistis alive today are over 47; half the Misks are over 2. That is 45 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 Misk Misti
England and Wales 1663

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: Misk and Misti.