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Kathryn vs Katrine

American parents have registered 456,515 Kathryns since 1880, against 903 Katrines. Kathryn is still ahead, with 381 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kathryn against Katrine, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kathryn Katrine

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

Kathryn 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 2017, when Kathryn had 748 and Katrine had 6.

Side by side

  Kathryn Katrine
Total US births 456,515903
Most in one year 8,51727
Babies in 2025 381under 5
Estimated living today 315,000760
Median age today 4845
Peak year 19521981
Best rank 48th girls3,147th girls
Rank in 2025 729thunranked
First recorded 18801915
Girls / boys 455,423 / 1,092903 / 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 Kathryns alive today are over 48; half the Katrines are over 45. That is 3 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Kathryn Katrine
England and Wales 4,79121
Scotland 2,62022
Ireland 1,2503
France 11570

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: Kathryn and Katrine.