Humanverse

Carollee vs Carrie

American parents have registered 267,540 Carries since 1880, against 263 Carollees. Carrie is still ahead, with 63 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Carollee against Carrie, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Carollee Carrie

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

Carrie 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 1944, when Carollee had 23 and Carrie had 1,028.

Side by side

  Carollee Carrie
Total US births 263267,540
Most in one year 238,688
Babies in 2025 under 563
Estimated living today 160164,000
Median age today 7850
Peak year 19441977
Best rank 1,742nd girls28th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,719th
First recorded 19341880
Girls / boys 263 / 0266,350 / 1,190

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 Carollees alive today are over 78; half the Carries are over 50. That is 28 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Carollee and Carrie.