Humanverse

Stacy vs Stanly

American parents have registered 186,268 Stacys since 1880, against 966 Stanlys. Stacy is still ahead, with 140 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Stacy against Stanly, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Stacy Stanly

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

Stacy 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 1929, when Stacy had 45 and Stanly had 23.

Side by side

  Stacy Stanly
Total US births 186,268966
Most in one year 10,14425
Babies in 2025 140under 5
Estimated living today 171,000470
Median age today 5062
Peak year 19711916
Best rank 32nd girls1,374th boys
Rank in 2025 1,652ndunranked
First recorded 18801912
Girls / boys 164,011 / 22,2570 / 966

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 Stanlys alive today are over 62; half the Stacys are over 50. That is 12 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 Stacy Stanly
France 6,06010

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: Stacy and Stanly.