Humanverse

Tenaya vs Tennie

American parents have registered 2,796 Tennies since 1880, against 1,008 Tenayas. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Tenaya against Tennie, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Tenaya Tennie

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 145 years in which either name was published, Tennie for 92 years and Tenaya for 53 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Tenaya Tennie
Total US births 1,0082,796
Most in one year 4379
Babies in 2025 under 5under 5
Estimated living today 990440
Median age today 2870
Peak year 19751918
Best rank 2,023rd girls843rd girls
Rank in 2025 unrankedunranked
First recorded 19711880
Girls / boys 1,008 / 02,777 / 19

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 Tennies alive today are over 70; half the Tenayas are over 28. That is 42 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Tenaya and Tennie.