Steel vs Steve
American parents have registered 242,131 Steves since 1880, against 865 Steels. Steve is still ahead, with 105 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Steel Steve
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
Steve 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 2024, when Steel had 50 and Steve had 99.
Side by side
| Steel | Steve | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 865 | 242,131 |
| Most in one year | 62 | 11,095 |
| Babies in 2025 | 38 | 105 |
| Estimated living today | 860 | 157,000 |
| Median age today | 9 | 64 |
| Peak year | 2021 | 1959 |
| Best rank | 2,253rd boys | 41st boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 3,128th | 1,609th |
| First recorded | 1984 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 0 / 865 | 907 / 241,224 |
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 Steves alive today are over 64; half the Steels are over 9. That is 55 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Steel Texas (6.6×), California (2.2×)
- Steve New Mexico (1.7×), Wyoming (1.5×), Montana (1.4×)
How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.
Compare something else
Related comparisons
Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Steel and Steve.