Humanverse

Sonda vs Sonnie

American parents have registered 1,630 Sonnies since 1880, against 717 Sondas. Sonnie is still ahead, with 41 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sonda against Sonnie, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sonda Sonnie

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 117 years in which either name was published, Sonnie for 94 years and Sonda for 23 years. The lead changed hands 12 times.

9 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Sonda Sonnie
Total US births 7171,630
Most in one year 4342
Babies in 2025 under 541
Estimated living today 6101,200
Median age today 5931
Peak year 19662023
Best rank 1,715th girls4,610th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked6,446th
First recorded 19371893
Girls / boys 717 / 0751 / 879

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 Sondas alive today are over 59; half the Sonnies are over 31. That is 28 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 Sonda Sonnie
France 55

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: Sonda and Sonnie.