Humanverse

Alvina vs Alvyn

American parents have registered 10,507 Alvinas since 1880, against 33 Alvyns. Alvina is still ahead, with 19 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Alvina against Alvyn, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Alvina Alvyn

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

Alvina has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2005, when Alvina had 14 and Alvyn had 6.

Side by side

  Alvina Alvyn
Total US births 10,50733
Most in one year 2937
Babies in 2025 19under 5
Estimated living today 2,80030
Median age today 5416
Peak year 19171932
Best rank 368th girls3,092nd boys
Rank in 2025 6,116thunranked
First recorded 18801932
Girls / boys 10,502 / 50 / 33

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 Alvinas alive today are over 54; half the Alvyns are over 16. That is 38 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 Alvina Alvyn
France 715335
England and Wales 1656

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: Alvina and Alvyn.