Humanverse

My vs Myrna

American parents have registered 31,742 Myrnas since 1880, against 1,340 Mys. But in 2025 it was My that was commoner, 7 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: My against Myrna, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

My Myrna

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 140 years in which either name was published, Myrna for 135 years and My for 5 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  My Myrna
Total US births 1,34031,742
Most in one year 1131,808
Babies in 2025 7under 5
Estimated living today 1,30016,000
Median age today 4074
Peak year 19821938
Best rank 1,357th girls134th girls
Rank in 2025 11,932ndunranked
First recorded 19711885
Girls / boys 1,101 / 23931,700 / 42

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 Myrnas alive today are over 74; half the Mys are over 40. That is 34 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 My Myrna
France 260290
England and Wales 374

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: My and Myrna.