Humanverse

Cecilio vs Cecillia

American parents have registered 2,411 Cecilios since 1880, against 556 Cecillias. Cecilio is still ahead, with 9 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Cecilio against Cecillia, 1880 to 2025 0 10 20 30 40 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Cecilio Cecillia

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 116 years in which either name was published, Cecilio for 113 years and Cecillia for 3 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Cecilio Cecillia
Total US births 2,411556
Most in one year 3920
Babies in 2025 9under 5
Estimated living today 1,800520
Median age today 4024
Peak year 19982007
Best rank 2,274th boys6,552nd girls
Rank in 2025 8,243rdunranked
First recorded 19091907
Girls / boys 0 / 2,411556 / 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 Cecilios alive today are over 40; half the Cecillias are over 24. That is 16 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 Cecilio Cecillia
France 5575

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: Cecilio and Cecillia.