Humanverse

Kendall vs Kenton

American parents have registered 101,883 Kendalls since 1880, against 11,280 Kentons. Kendall is still ahead, with 1,095 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kendall against Kenton, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kendall Kenton

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

Kendall has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1906 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1951, when Kendall had 155 and Kenton had 133.

Side by side

  Kendall Kenton
Total US births 101,88311,280
Most in one year 3,004188
Babies in 2025 1,09592
Estimated living today 96,0009,300
Median age today 2235
Peak year 20122014
Best rank 116th girls1,054th boys
Rank in 2025 328th1,753rd
First recorded 19061912
Girls / boys 66,533 / 35,3500 / 11,280

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 Kentons alive today are over 35; half the Kendalls are over 22. 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 Kendall Kenton
England and Wales 953138

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: Kendall and Kenton.