Humanverse

Courtenay vs Courtnie

American parents have registered 2,114 Courtnies since 1880, against 1,435 Courtenays. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Courtenay against Courtnie, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Courtenay Courtnie

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 67 years in which either name was published, Courtenay for 34 years and Courtnie for 33 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Courtenay Courtnie
Total US births 1,4352,114
Most in one year 78139
Babies in 2025 under 5under 5
Estimated living today 1,3002,100
Median age today 4633
Peak year 19661994
Best rank 1,320th girls1,239th girls
Rank in 2025 unrankedunranked
First recorded 19151973
Girls / boys 1,189 / 2462,114 / 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 Courtenays alive today are over 46; half the Courtnies are over 33. That is 13 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 Courtenay Courtnie
England and Wales 94114

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: Courtenay and Courtnie.