Humanverse

Mose vs Mossie

American parents have registered 7,990 Moses since 1880, against 1,056 Mossies. Mose is still ahead, with 25 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mose against Mossie, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mose Mossie

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

Mose 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 1905, when Mose had 58 and Mossie had 22.

Side by side

  Mose Mossie
Total US births 7,9901,056
Most in one year 16835
Babies in 2025 25under 5
Estimated living today 2,30090
Median age today 5882
Peak year 19191921
Best rank 451st boys1,341st girls
Rank in 2025 4,139thunranked
First recorded 18801884
Girls / boys 55 / 7,9351,051 / 5

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 Mossies alive today are over 82; half the Moses are over 58. That is 24 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: Mose and Mossie.