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Makaela vs Makenzie

American parents have registered 45,324 Makenzies since 1880, against 2,764 Makaelas. Makenzie is still ahead, with 406 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Makaela Makenzie

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

Makenzie has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1975 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1980, when Makaela had 6 and Makenzie had 19.

Side by side

  Makaela Makenzie
Total US births 2,76445,324
Most in one year 1452,218
Babies in 2025 13406
Estimated living today 2,70045,000
Median age today 2117
Peak year 19982011
Best rank 1,254th girls139th girls
Rank in 2025 7,885th700th
First recorded 19801975
Girls / boys 2,764 / 045,023 / 301

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 Makaelas alive today are over 21; half the Makenzies are over 17. That is 4 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 Makaela Makenzie
England and Wales 6428

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: Makaela and Makenzie.