Humanverse

Riven vs Rivky

American parents have registered 2,377 Rivkys since 1880, against 513 Rivens. Rivky is still ahead, with 144 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Riven against Rivky, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Riven Rivky

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

Rivky has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1958 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2023, when Riven had 75 and Rivky had 120.

Side by side

  Riven Rivky
Total US births 5132,377
Most in one year 75144
Babies in 2025 70144
Estimated living today 5102,400
Median age today 410
Peak year 20252025
Best rank 2,390th boys1,484th girls
Rank in 2025 2,390th1,484th
First recorded 20081958
Girls / boys 201 / 3122,377 / 0

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 Rivkys alive today are over 10; half the Rivens are over 4. That is 6 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 Riven Rivky
England and Wales 132174

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: Riven and Rivky.