Humanverse

Tora vs Torey

American parents have registered 4,394 Toreys since 1880, against 1,016 Toras. But in 2025 it was Tora that was commoner, 9 babies to 8.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Tora against Torey, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Tora Torey

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 80 years in which either name was published, Torey for 63 years and Tora for 17 years. The lead changed hands 12 times.

7 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Tora Torey
Total US births 1,0164,394
Most in one year 53185
Babies in 2025 98
Estimated living today 9404,200
Median age today 4436
Peak year 19761987
Best rank 1,775th girls844th boys
Rank in 2025 10,107th8,910th
First recorded 18981953
Girls / boys 990 / 261,421 / 2,973

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 Toras alive today are over 44; half the Toreys are over 36. That is 8 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 Tora Torey
England and Wales 7323

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: Tora and Torey.