Humanverse

Misk vs Misty

American parents have registered 84,891 Mistys since 1880, against 577 Misks. But in 2025 it was Misk that was commoner, 115 babies to 35.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Misk against Misty, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Misk Misty

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 81 years in which either name was published, Misty for 76 years and Misk for 5 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Misk Misty
Total US births 57784,891
Most in one year 1156,333
Babies in 2025 11535
Estimated living today 57081,000
Median age today 246
Peak year 20251977
Best rank 1,758th girls40th girls
Rank in 2025 1,758th4,067th
First recorded 20101944
Girls / boys 577 / 084,654 / 237

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 Mistys alive today are over 46; half the Misks are over 2. That is 44 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 Misty
England and Wales 166345
France 1005
Scotland 43

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 Misty.