Humanverse

Kesha vs Keston

American parents have registered 5,253 Keshas since 1880, against 834 Kestons. But in 2025 it was Keston that was commoner, 20 babies to 7.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kesha against Keston, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kesha Keston

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 62 years in which either name was published, Kesha for 39 years and Keston for 23 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kesha Keston
Total US births 5,253834
Most in one year 32043
Babies in 2025 720
Estimated living today 5,000820
Median age today 4715
Peak year 19742010
Best rank 524th girls2,787th boys
Rank in 2025 11,932nd4,857th
First recorded 19641981
Girls / boys 5,248 / 50 / 834

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 Keshas alive today are over 47; half the Kestons are over 15. That is 32 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 Kesha Keston
England and Wales 5841

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: Kesha and Keston.