Humanverse

Lon vs Lonnie

American parents have registered 101,481 Lonnies since 1880, against 9,856 Lons. Lonnie is still ahead, with 109 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lon against Lonnie, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lon Lonnie

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

Lonnie 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 1880, when Lon had 64 and Lonnie had 66.

Side by side

  Lon Lonnie
Total US births 9,856101,481
Most in one year 2742,237
Babies in 2025 under 5109
Estimated living today 5,30057,000
Median age today 6462
Peak year 19481947
Best rank 411th boys137th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,837th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 20 / 9,8366,995 / 94,486

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 Lons alive today are over 64; half the Lonnies are over 62. That is 2 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Lon and Lonnie.