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Clifton vs Cliodhna

American parents have registered 70,685 Cliftons since 1880, against 7 Cliodhnas. Clifton is still ahead, with 82 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Clifton against Cliodhna, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Clifton Cliodhna

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

Clifton 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 2025, when Clifton had 82 and Cliodhna had 7.

Side by side

  Clifton Cliodhna
Total US births 70,6857
Most in one year 1,2247
Babies in 2025 827
Estimated living today 37,0007
Median age today 540
Peak year 19752025
Best rank 186th boys11,932nd girls
Rank in 2025 1,906th11,932nd
First recorded 18802025
Girls / boys 436 / 70,2497 / 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 Cliftons alive today are over 54; half the Cliodhnas have not had a first birthday. That is 54 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 Clifton Cliodhna
England and Wales 765

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: Clifton and Cliodhna.