Humanverse

Unice vs Unique

American parents have registered 8,569 Uniques since 1880, against 330 Unices. Unique is still ahead, with 119 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Unice against Unique, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Unice Unique

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 93 years in which either name was published, Unique for 53 years and Unice for 40 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Unice Unique
Total US births 3308,569
Most in one year 16310
Babies in 2025 under 5119
Estimated living today 1208,400
Median age today 6822
Peak year 19232009
Best rank 2,587th girls921st girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,438th
First recorded 19121972
Girls / boys 300 / 307,615 / 954

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 Unices alive today are over 68; half the Uniques are over 22. That is 46 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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