Sonja vs Sonny

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Sonja Sonny

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 133 years in which either name was published, Sonny for 79 years and Sonja for 54 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

• 1888–1925 Sonny ahead
• 1926 Sonja ahead
• 1927–1935 Sonny ahead
• 1936–1987 Sonja ahead
• 1988–1993 Sonny ahead
• 1994 Sonja ahead
• 1995–2025 Sonny ahead

Side by side

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 Sonjas alive today are over 57; half the Sonnys are over 22. That is 35 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

• Sonja Minnesota (2.2×), North Dakota (2.0×), Washington (1.8×)
• Sonny California (2.2×), Arizona (2.2×), Hawaii (2.0×)

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.

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

• Sonja vs Sonia
• Sonja vs Sonya
• Sonja vs Sondra
• Sonja vs Sonnie
• Sonja vs Sonora
• Sonny vs Sonia
• Sonny vs Sonya
• Sonny vs Sondra