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Winnifred vs Winona

American parents have registered 12,953 Winonas since 1880, against 5,127 Winnifreds. Winona is still ahead, with 466 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Winnifred against Winona, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Winnifred Winona

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, Winona for 122 years and Winnifred for 24 years. The lead changed hands 9 times.

Side by side

  Winnifred Winona
Total US births 5,12712,953
Most in one year 166466
Babies in 2025 70466
Estimated living today 1,3006,100
Median age today 5745
Peak year 19182025
Best rank 546th girls627th girls
Rank in 2025 2,514th627th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 5,127 / 012,953 / 0

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 Winnifreds alive today are over 57; half the Winonas are over 45. That is 12 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 Winnifred Winona
England and Wales 116221

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: Winnifred and Winona.