Precious vs Prentis

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Precious Prentis

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 127 years in which either name was published, Precious for 102 years and Prentis for 25 years. The lead changed hands 18 times.

• 1897–1908 Precious ahead
• 1912–1915 Prentis ahead
• 1916–1927 Precious ahead
• 1933–1953 Prentis ahead, apart from 3 short spells
• 1954–2025 Precious ahead, apart from one short spell

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

Side by side

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 Prentises alive today are over 55; half the Preciouses are over 28. That is 27 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

• Precious Hawaii (3.3×), Louisiana (2.5×), Mississippi (2.2×)
• Prentis Mississippi (43.0×), Louisiana (18.6×)

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

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