Humanverse

Kenny vs Kenzai

American parents have registered 52,479 Kennys since 1880, against 79 Kenzais. Kenny is still ahead, with 161 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Kenny Kenzai

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

Kenny has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1908 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2025, when Kenny had 161 and Kenzai had 42.

Side by side

  Kenny Kenzai
Total US births 52,47979
Most in one year 1,94942
Babies in 2025 16142
Estimated living today 42,00080
Median age today 500
Peak year 19602025
Best rank 169th boys2,941st boys
Rank in 2025 1,267th2,941st
First recorded 19082024
Girls / boys 548 / 51,9310 / 79

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 Kennys alive today are over 50; half the Kenzais have not had a first birthday. That is 50 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 Kenny Kenzai
England and Wales 1,1889

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: Kenny and Kenzai.