Humanverse

Gregory vs Greyson

American parents have registered 714,753 Gregorys since 1880, against 61,043 Greysons. But in 2025 it was Greyson that was commoner, 2,457 babies to 493.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Gregory Greyson

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, Gregory for 126 years and Greyson for 16 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Gregory Greyson
Total US births 714,75361,043
Most in one year 22,0634,889
Babies in 2025 4932,457
Estimated living today 576,00061,000
Median age today 568
Peak year 19622017
Best rank 21st boys80th boys
Rank in 2025 593rd149th
First recorded 18801965
Girls / boys 2,860 / 711,893812 / 60,231

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 Greysons are over 8. That is 48 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 Gregory Greyson
France 91,75540
England and Wales 2,9441,236
Ireland 2,09518
Scotland 45582
Northern Ireland 263

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: Gregory and Greyson.