Humanverse

Sky vs Skylan

American parents have registered 13,948 Skys since 1880, against 791 Skylans. Sky is still ahead, with 373 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sky against Skylan, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sky Skylan

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

Sky has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1953 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2016, when Sky had 452 and Skylan had 55.

Side by side

  Sky Skylan
Total US births 13,948791
Most in one year 51055
Babies in 2025 37330
Estimated living today 14,000790
Median age today 1610
Peak year 20212016
Best rank 710th girls4,157th girls
Rank in 2025 948th6,838th
First recorded 19531994
Girls / boys 9,743 / 4,205478 / 313

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 Skys alive today are over 16; half the Skylans are over 10. That is 6 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: Sky and Skylan.