Humanverse

Stella vs Stevey

American parents have registered 207,288 Stellas since 1880, against 158 Steveys. Stella is still ahead, with 4,136 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Stella against Stevey, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Stella Stevey

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

Stella has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1994, when Stella had 131 and Stevey had 11.

Side by side

  Stella Stevey
Total US births 207,288158
Most in one year 5,16412
Babies in 2025 4,136under 5
Estimated living today 110,000150
Median age today 1132
Peak year 20182006
Best rank 38th girls9,286th girls
Rank in 2025 52ndunranked
First recorded 18801963
Girls / boys 206,906 / 382135 / 23

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 Steveys alive today are over 32; half the Stellas are over 11. That is 21 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 Stella Stevey
England and Wales 3,5423

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: Stella and Stevey.