Stephen vs Sterling
American parents have registered 867,669 Stephens since 1880, against 41,197 Sterlings. But in 2025 it was Sterling that was commoner, 1,162 babies to 829.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Stephen Sterling
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 146 years in which either name was published, Stephen for 141 years and Sterling for 5 years. The lead changed hands once.
Side by side
| Stephen | Sterling | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 867,669 | 41,197 |
| Most in one year | 23,082 | 1,162 |
| Babies in 2025 | 829 | 1,162 |
| Estimated living today | 646,000 | 31,000 |
| Median age today | 55 | 25 |
| Peak year | 1952 | 2025 |
| Best rank | 21st boys | 345th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 383rd | 345th |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 2,930 / 864,739 | 3,723 / 37,474 |
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 Stephens alive today are over 55; half the Sterlings are over 25. That is 30 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Stephen Rhode Island (2.3×), Massachusetts (2.2×), Maine (1.9×)
- Sterling Utah (4.2×), Louisiana (2.2×), Virginia (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.
| Country | Stephen | Sterling |
|---|---|---|
| Scotland | 14,608 | 3 |
| England and Wales | 8,933 | 288 |
| France | 6,615 | 30 |
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: Stephen and Sterling.