Humanverse

Prince vs Priscilla

American parents have registered 123,040 Priscillas since 1880, against 24,151 Princes. But in 2025 it was Prince that was commoner, 703 babies to 555.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Prince against Priscilla, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Prince Priscilla

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

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Priscilla for 134 years and Prince for 12 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Prince Priscilla
Total US births 24,151123,040
Most in one year 1,1641,998
Babies in 2025 703555
Estimated living today 20,00090,000
Median age today 1043
Peak year 20191942
Best rank 297th boys135th girls
Rank in 2025 447th544th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 550 / 23,601122,796 / 244

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 Priscillas alive today are over 43; half the Princes are over 10. That is 33 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 Prince Priscilla
France 1,00513,505
England and Wales 1,855835
Belgium 133247
Ireland 105261
Scotland 2121
Poland 23

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: Prince and Priscilla.