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Kenneth vs Keno

American parents have registered 1,289,312 Kenneths since 1880, against 617 Kenos. Kenneth is still ahead, with 1,148 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kenneth against Keno, 1880 to 2025 0 8k 16k 24k 32k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kenneth Keno

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

Kenneth 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 2022, when Kenneth had 1,312 and Keno had 16.

Side by side

  Kenneth Keno
Total US births 1,289,312617
Most in one year 28,14522
Babies in 2025 1,14812
Estimated living today 779,000580
Median age today 6130
Peak year 19571975
Best rank 14th boys2,065th boys
Rank in 2025 294th6,803rd
First recorded 18801947
Girls / boys 5,338 / 1,283,9740 / 617

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 Kenneths alive today are over 61; half the Kenos are over 30. That is 31 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 Kenneth Keno
England and Wales 1,1353
Switzerland 7263

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: Kenneth and Keno.