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Tami vs Tamila

American parents have registered 38,017 Tamis since 1880, against 572 Tamilas. Tami is still ahead, with 12 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Tami against Tamila, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Tami Tamila

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 81 years in which either name was published, Tami for 79 years and Tamila for 2 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Tami Tamila
Total US births 38,017572
Most in one year 2,74630
Babies in 2025 12under 5
Estimated living today 34,000530
Median age today 5853
Peak year 19591968
Best rank 154th girls2,205th girls
Rank in 2025 8,362ndunranked
First recorded 19421957
Girls / boys 37,927 / 90572 / 0

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 Tamis alive today are over 58; half the Tamilas are over 53. That is 5 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 Tami Tamila
France 5105
England and Wales 493

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: Tami and Tamila.