Humanverse

Silje vs Silver

American parents have registered 2,277 Silvers since 1880, against 64 Siljes. Silver is still ahead, with 65 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Silje against Silver, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Silje Silver

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

Silver has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1896 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2014, when Silje had 13 and Silver had 52.

Side by side

  Silje Silver
Total US births 642,277
Most in one year 1375
Babies in 2025 under 565
Estimated living today 602,000
Median age today 1018
Peak year 20142023
Best rank 8,485th girls3,014th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked3,342nd
First recorded 20021896
Girls / boys 64 / 01,749 / 528

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 Silvers alive today are over 18; half the Siljes are over 10. That is 8 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 Silje Silver
France 5100

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: Silje and Silver.