Humanverse

Catharine vs Catrina

American parents have registered 12,994 Catharines since 1880, against 10,150 Catrinas. But in 2025 it was Catrina that was commoner, 12 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Catharine against Catrina, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Catharine Catrina

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 90 years and Catrina for 56 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Catharine Catrina
Total US births 12,99410,150
Most in one year 281454
Babies in 2025 under 512
Estimated living today 5,4009,700
Median age today 5844
Peak year 19151980
Best rank 357th girls468th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked8,362nd
First recorded 18801950
Girls / boys 12,994 / 010,150 / 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 Catrinas are over 44. That is 14 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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.

Country Catharine Catrina
England and Wales 56190
Scotland 3189

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: Catharine and Catrina.