Winona vs Winston

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Winona Winston

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 146 years in which either name was published, Winston for 101 years and Winona for 45 years. The lead changed hands 13 times.

• 1880–1913 Winona ahead
• 1917–1919 Winston ahead
• 1922–1925 Winona ahead
• 1935–2025 Winston ahead

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

Side by side

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 Winonas alive today are over 45; half the Winstons are over 22. That is 23 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

• Winona Hawaii (15.5×), Maine (4.6×), Oklahoma (3.4×)
• Winston Alabama (3.1×), Vermont (2.4×), Virginia (2.1×)

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

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

• Winona vs Winifred
• Winona vs Winnie
• Winona vs Winter
• Winona vs Winfred
• Winona vs Winfield
• Winston vs Winifred
• Winston vs Winnie
• Winston vs Winter