Humanverse

Abigaile vs Abilene

American parents have registered 1,674 Abilenes since 1880, against 614 Abigailes. Abilene is still ahead, with 91 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Abigaile against Abilene, 1880 to 2025 0 30 60 90 120 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Abigaile Abilene

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 40 years in which either name was published, Abilene for 30 years and Abigaile for 10 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Abigaile Abilene
Total US births 6141,674
Most in one year 42102
Babies in 2025 under 591
Estimated living today 6101,700
Median age today 2010
Peak year 20062024
Best rank 3,669th girls1,942nd girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,064th
First recorded 19891964
Girls / boys 614 / 01,674 / 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 Abigailes alive today are over 20; half the Abilenes are over 10. That is 10 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 Abigaile Abilene
England and Wales 496

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: Abigaile and Abilene.