Humanverse

Phillip vs Phinehas

American parents have registered 312,891 Phillips since 1880, against 585 Phinehases. Phillip is still ahead, with 425 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Phillip Phinehas

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

Phillip 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 2025, when Phillip had 425 and Phinehas had 51.

Side by side

  Phillip Phinehas
Total US births 312,891585
Most in one year 6,07651
Babies in 2025 42551
Estimated living today 227,000580
Median age today 517
Peak year 19602025
Best rank 66th boys2,572nd boys
Rank in 2025 651st2,572nd
First recorded 18801997
Girls / boys 1,330 / 311,5610 / 585

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 Phillips alive today are over 51; half the Phinehases are over 7. That is 44 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Phillip Phinehas
England and Wales 1,72017

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: Phillip and Phinehas.