Humanverse

Trace vs Tracye

American parents have registered 14,112 Traces since 1880, against 1,086 Tracyes. Trace is still ahead, with 340 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Trace against Tracye, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Trace Tracye

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 71 years in which either name was published, Trace for 57 years and Tracye for 14 years. The lead changed hands 9 times.

Side by side

  Trace Tracye
Total US births 14,1121,086
Most in one year 53481
Babies in 2025 340under 5
Estimated living today 14,000980
Median age today 1859
Peak year 20081965
Best rank 510th boys1,194th girls
Rank in 2025 757thunranked
First recorded 19561955
Girls / boys 348 / 13,7641,081 / 5

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 Tracyes alive today are over 59; half the Traces are over 18. That is 41 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: Trace and Tracye.