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Montoya vs Monty

American parents have registered 15,629 Montys since 1880, against 639 Montoyas. Monty is still ahead, with 112 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Montoya Monty

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

Monty has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1900 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1991, when Montoya had 29 and Monty had 61.

Side by side

  Montoya Monty
Total US births 63915,629
Most in one year 36551
Babies in 2025 under 5112
Estimated living today 61011,000
Median age today 4260
Peak year 19911961
Best rank 3,633rd girls339th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,539th
First recorded 19621900
Girls / boys 520 / 119279 / 15,350

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 Montys alive today are over 60; half the Montoyas are over 42. That is 18 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Montoya and Monty.