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Sonam vs Sonnie

American parents have registered 1,630 Sonnies since 1880, against 616 Sonams. Sonnie is still ahead, with 41 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sonam against Sonnie, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sonam Sonnie

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 114 years in which either name was published, Sonnie for 103 years and Sonam for 11 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Sonam Sonnie
Total US births 6161,630
Most in one year 3242
Babies in 2025 1741
Estimated living today 6101,200
Median age today 1531
Peak year 19922023
Best rank 3,419th girls4,610th boys
Rank in 2025 8,860th6,446th
First recorded 19861893
Girls / boys 492 / 124751 / 879

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 Sonnies alive today are over 31; half the Sonams are over 15. That is 16 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 Sonam Sonnie
England and Wales 169650
France 1205

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: Sonam and Sonnie.