Humanverse

Tavis vs Tavish

American parents have registered 2,216 Tavises since 1880, against 785 Tavishes. But in 2025 it was Tavish that was commoner, 21 babies to 9.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Tavis against Tavish, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Tavis Tavish

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 63 years in which either name was published, Tavis for 51 years and Tavish for 12 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Tavis Tavish
Total US births 2,216785
Most in one year 7935
Babies in 2025 921
Estimated living today 2,100770
Median age today 3319
Peak year 19991993
Best rank 1,457th boys2,209th boys
Rank in 2025 8,243rd4,707th
First recorded 19631970
Girls / boys 6 / 2,2105 / 780

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 Tavises alive today are over 33; half the Tavishes are over 19. That is 14 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 Tavis Tavish
England and Wales 6045

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: Tavis and Tavish.