Humanverse

Newman vs Newton

American parents have registered 8,182 Newtons since 1880, against 1,896 Newmans. Newton is still ahead, with 15 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Newman against Newton, 1880 to 2025 0 60 120 180 240 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Newman Newton

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

Newton has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1977, when Newman had 13 and Newton had 22.

Side by side

  Newman Newton
Total US births 1,8968,182
Most in one year 67208
Babies in 2025 under 515
Estimated living today 5502,500
Median age today 6155
Peak year 19211919
Best rank 843rd boys404th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked5,861st
First recorded 18821880
Girls / boys 0 / 1,8965 / 8,177

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 Newmans alive today are over 61; half the Newtons are over 55. That is 6 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 Newman Newton
France 1085

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: Newman and Newton.