Humanverse

Greenlee vs Gregory

American parents have registered 714,753 Gregorys since 1880, against 842 Greenlees. Gregory is still ahead, with 493 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Greenlee Gregory

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

Gregory 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 2015, when Greenlee had 46 and Gregory had 987.

Side by side

  Greenlee Gregory
Total US births 842714,753
Most in one year 5722,063
Babies in 2025 12493
Estimated living today 840576,000
Median age today 1456
Peak year 20101962
Best rank 2,976th girls21st boys
Rank in 2025 8,362nd593rd
First recorded 20011880
Girls / boys 842 / 02,860 / 711,893

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 Gregorys alive today are over 56; half the Greenlees are over 14. That is 42 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: Greenlee and Gregory.