Humanverse

Catharina vs Catharine

American parents have registered 12,994 Catharines since 1880, against 332 Catharinas. But in 2025 it was Catharina that was commoner, 11 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Catharina Catharine

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, Catharine for 142 years and Catharina for 4 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Catharina Catharine
Total US births 33212,994
Most in one year 14281
Babies in 2025 11under 5
Estimated living today 3205,400
Median age today 3458
Peak year 19891915
Best rank 5,836th girls357th girls
Rank in 2025 8,860thunranked
First recorded 19481880
Girls / boys 332 / 012,994 / 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 Catharines alive today are over 58; half the Catharinas are over 34. That is 24 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 Catharina Catharine
England and Wales 956

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: Catharina and Catharine.