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Milda vs Milton

American parents have registered 118,551 Miltons since 1880, against 878 Mildas. Milton is still ahead, with 125 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Milda against Milton, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Milda Milton

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

Milton 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 1897, when Milda had 12 and Milton had 161.

Side by side

  Milda Milton
Total US births 878118,551
Most in one year 382,603
Babies in 2025 under 5125
Estimated living today 16042,000
Median age today 7463
Peak year 19181920
Best rank 1,214th girls74th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,436th
First recorded 18881880
Girls / boys 878 / 0615 / 117,936

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 Mildas alive today are over 74; half the Miltons are over 63. That is 11 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 Milda Milton
England and Wales 61140
France 3595

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: Milda and Milton.