Humanverse

Steven vs Stevey

American parents have registered 1,297,590 Stevens since 1880, against 158 Steveys. Steven is still ahead, with 1,261 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Steven against Stevey, 1880 to 2025 0 10k 20k 30k 40k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Steven 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

Steven 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 2021, when Steven had 1,514 and Stevey had 6.

Side by side

  Steven Stevey
Total US births 1,297,590158
Most in one year 38,49112
Babies in 2025 1,261under 5
Estimated living today 1.1 million150
Median age today 5532
Peak year 19562006
Best rank 10th boys9,286th girls
Rank in 2025 271stunranked
First recorded 18801963
Girls / boys 4,466 / 1,293,124135 / 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 Stevens alive today are over 55; half the Steveys are over 32. That is 23 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 Steven Stevey
England and Wales 7,0013

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: Steven and Stevey.