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Cliff vs Clinard

American parents have registered 9,307 Cliffs since 1880, against 14 Clinards. Cliff is still ahead, with 43 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Cliff Clinard

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

Cliff 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 1923, when Cliff had 49 and Clinard had 9.

Side by side

  Cliff Clinard
Total US births 9,30714
Most in one year 3109
Babies in 2025 43under 5
Estimated living today 6,1001
Median age today 5786
Peak year 19591923
Best rank 455th boys2,950th boys
Rank in 2025 2,884thunranked
First recorded 18801923
Girls / boys 0 / 9,3070 / 14

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 Clinards alive today are over 86; half the Cliffs are over 57. That is 29 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: Cliff and Clinard.