Humanverse

Tor vs Torey

American parents have registered 4,394 Toreys since 1880, against 886 Tors. But in 2025 it was Tor that was commoner, 12 babies to 8.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Tor against Torey, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Tor Torey

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 74 years in which either name was published, Torey for 61 years and Tor for 13 years. The lead changed hands 8 times.

Side by side

  Tor Torey
Total US births 8864,394
Most in one year 30185
Babies in 2025 128
Estimated living today 8204,200
Median age today 3336
Peak year 19651987
Best rank 1,405th boys844th boys
Rank in 2025 6,803rd8,910th
First recorded 19491953
Girls / boys 0 / 8861,421 / 2,973

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 Toreys alive today are over 36; half the Tors are over 33. That is 3 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 Tor Torey
England and Wales 16623

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: Tor and Torey.