Humanverse

Cody vs Kody

American parents have registered 297,177 Codys since 1880, against 24,641 Kodys. Cody is still ahead, with 1,098 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Cody against Kody, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Cody Kody

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

Cody has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1884 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2019, when Cody had 1,235 and Kody had 285.

Side by side

  Cody Kody
Total US births 297,17724,641
Most in one year 20,0791,200
Babies in 2025 1,098221
Estimated living today 286,00024,000
Median age today 3127
Peak year 19921993
Best rank 24th boys245th boys
Rank in 2025 318th1,069th
First recorded 18841956
Girls / boys 5,168 / 292,009879 / 23,762

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 Codys alive today are over 31; half the Kodys are over 27. That is 4 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 Cody Kody
England and Wales 12,7931,481
Scotland 1,659203
Ireland 1,378112
France 70545
Northern Ireland 67855

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: Cody and Kody.