Sunnie vs Sunshine
American parents have registered 5,779 Sunshines since 1880, against 2,754 Sunnies. But in 2025 it was Sunnie that was commoner, 230 babies to 57.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Sunnie Sunshine
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 107 years in which either name was published, Sunshine for 71 years and Sunnie for 36 years. The lead changed hands 15 times.
- 1905–1929 Sunshine ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1937–1969 Sunnie ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1970–2018 Sunshine ahead, apart from one short spell
- 2019–2025 Sunnie ahead
9 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Sunnie | Sunshine | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 2,754 | 5,779 |
| Most in one year | 230 | 324 |
| Babies in 2025 | 230 | 57 |
| Estimated living today | 2,600 | 5,400 |
| Median age today | 13 | 40 |
| Peak year | 2024 | 1975 |
| Best rank | 1,105th girls | 533rd girls |
| Rank in 2025 | 1,092nd | 2,933rd |
| First recorded | 1915 | 1905 |
| Girls / boys | 2,692 / 62 | 5,734 / 45 |
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 Sunshines alive today are over 40; half the Sunnies are over 13. That is 27 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Sunnie Utah (4.2×), California (3.0×), Texas (2.5×)
- Sunshine California (3.5×), Arizona (2.3×), Florida (1.8×)
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 | Sunnie | Sunshine |
|---|---|---|
| England and Wales | 162 | 62 |
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: Sunnie and Sunshine.