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Pinkey vs Pinkney

American parents have registered 580 Pinkeys since 1880, against 531 Pinkneys. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Pinkey against Pinkney, 1880 to 2025 0 5 10 15 20 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Pinkey Pinkney

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 77 years in which either name was published, Pinkey for 43 years and Pinkney for 34 years. The lead changed hands 27 times.

18 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Pinkey Pinkney
Total US births 580531
Most in one year 1717
Babies in 2025 under 5under 5
Estimated living today 12060
Median age today 7577
Peak year 19101916
Best rank 1,069th girls1,771st boys
Rank in 2025 unrankedunranked
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 574 / 60 / 531

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 Pinkneys alive today are over 77; half the Pinkeys are over 75. That is 2 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: Pinkey and Pinkney.