Humanverse

Steve vs Stevie

American parents have registered 242,131 Steves since 1880, against 30,183 Stevies. But in 2025 it was Stevie that was commoner, 1,545 babies to 105.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Steve against Stevie, 1880 to 2025 0 3k 6k 9k 12k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Steve Stevie

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, Steve for 133 years and Stevie for 13 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Steve Stevie
Total US births 242,13130,183
Most in one year 11,0951,545
Babies in 2025 1051,545
Estimated living today 157,00028,000
Median age today 6428
Peak year 19592025
Best rank 41st boys203rd girls
Rank in 2025 1,609th203rd
First recorded 18801919
Girls / boys 907 / 241,22417,746 / 12,437

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 Steves alive today are over 64; half the Stevies are over 28. That is 36 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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 Steve Stevie
France 22,250535
England and Wales 4562,694
Scotland 142306
Ireland 193137
Northern Ireland 313

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: Steve and Stevie.