Humanverse

Stephen vs Stevey

American parents have registered 867,669 Stephens since 1880, against 158 Steveys. Stephen is still ahead, with 829 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Stephen against Stevey, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Stephen Stevey

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

Stephen 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 2021, when Stephen had 958 and Stevey had 6.

Side by side

  Stephen Stevey
Total US births 867,669158
Most in one year 23,08212
Babies in 2025 829under 5
Estimated living today 646,000150
Median age today 5532
Peak year 19522006
Best rank 21st boys9,286th girls
Rank in 2025 383rdunranked
First recorded 18801963
Girls / boys 2,930 / 864,739135 / 23

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 Stephens alive today are over 55; half the Steveys are over 32. That is 23 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 Stephen Stevey
England and Wales 8,9333

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: Stephen and Stevey.