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Colden vs Colleen

American parents have registered 163,084 Colleens since 1880, against 1,014 Coldens. Colleen is still ahead, with 60 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Colden against Colleen, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Colden Colleen

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

Colleen has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1901 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2021, when Colden had 45 and Colleen had 65.

Side by side

  Colden Colleen
Total US births 1,014163,084
Most in one year 564,560
Babies in 2025 2460
Estimated living today 1,000133,000
Median age today 1358
Peak year 20161964
Best rank 2,335th boys94th girls
Rank in 2025 4,249th2,822nd
First recorded 19441901
Girls / boys 0 / 1,014162,754 / 330

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 Colleens alive today are over 58; half the Coldens are over 13. That is 45 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Colden and Colleen.