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Gregg vs Greta

American parents have registered 36,624 Greggs since 1880, against 27,791 Gretas. But in 2025 it was Greta that was commoner, 291 babies to 5.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Gregg against Greta, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Gregg Greta

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 142 years in which either name was published, Greta for 94 years and Gregg for 48 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Gregg Greta
Total US births 36,62427,791
Most in one year 1,900534
Babies in 2025 5291
Estimated living today 28,00022,000
Median age today 6228
Peak year 19621967
Best rank 167th boys394th girls
Rank in 2025 12,008th908th
First recorded 18811885
Girls / boys 112 / 36,51227,786 / 5

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 Greggs alive today are over 62; half the Gretas are over 28. That is 34 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 Gregg Greta
England and Wales 701,303
Scotland 36062
France 25355
Ireland 23156
Belgium 534

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: Gregg and Greta.