Humanverse

Sutter vs Sutton

American parents have registered 20,017 Suttons since 1880, against 598 Sutters. Sutton is still ahead, with 2,715 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sutter against Sutton, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sutter Sutton

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

Sutton has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1912 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1996, when Sutter had 7 and Sutton had 36.

Side by side

  Sutter Sutton
Total US births 59820,017
Most in one year 532,715
Babies in 2025 312,715
Estimated living today 59020,000
Median age today 84
Peak year 20192025
Best rank 2,656th boys181st girls
Rank in 2025 3,583rd181st
First recorded 19951912
Girls / boys 48 / 55012,666 / 7,351

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 Sutters alive today are over 8; half the Suttons are over 4. That is 4 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.

Compare something else

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Sutter and Sutton.