Humanverse

Winifred vs Winter

American parents have registered 46,200 Winifreds since 1880, against 16,656 Winters. But in 2025 it was Winter that was commoner, 809 babies to 284.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Winifred against Winter, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Winifred Winter

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 146 years in which either name was published, Winifred for 97 years and Winter for 49 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Winifred Winter
Total US births 46,20016,656
Most in one year 1,6401,118
Babies in 2025 284809
Estimated living today 11,00016,000
Median age today 688
Peak year 19182022
Best rank 144th girls304th girls
Rank in 2025 922nd426th
First recorded 18801954
Girls / boys 45,094 / 1,10615,619 / 1,037

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 Winifreds alive today are over 68; half the Winters are over 8. That is 60 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 Winifred Winter
England and Wales 1,2311,723
Ireland 96931
Scotland 2597
France 2545

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: Winifred and Winter.