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Malaynah vs Malcolm

American parents have registered 70,328 Malcolms since 1880, against 82 Malaynahs. Malcolm is still ahead, with 1,257 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Malaynah against Malcolm, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Malaynah Malcolm

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

Malcolm 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 2019, when Malaynah had 18 and Malcolm had 1,022.

Side by side

  Malaynah Malcolm
Total US births 8270,328
Most in one year 181,495
Babies in 2025 91,257
Estimated living today 8048,000
Median age today 432
Peak year 20191992
Best rank 6,414th girls206th boys
Rank in 2025 10,107th272nd
First recorded 20191880
Girls / boys 82 / 0119 / 70,209

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 Malcolms alive today are over 32; half the Malaynahs are over 4. That is 28 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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