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Winnifred vs Winston

American parents have registered 32,956 Winstons since 1880, against 5,127 Winnifreds. Winston is still ahead, with 830 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Winnifred against Winston, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Winnifred Winston

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, Winston for 114 years and Winnifred for 32 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Winnifred Winston
Total US births 5,12732,956
Most in one year 166866
Babies in 2025 70830
Estimated living today 1,30023,000
Median age today 5722
Peak year 19182019
Best rank 546th girls371st boys
Rank in 2025 2,514th381st
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 5,127 / 0162 / 32,794

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 Winstons are over 22. That is 35 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 Winston
England and Wales 116800
Ireland 313

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 Winston.