Spelling variants chart separately
The U.S. Social Security Administration counts baby names by exact spelling. In its 2025 file, Evelyn and Evelynn, two girls' spellings one letter apart, are two separate entries — #8 with 9,123 babies and #301 with 1,012 — and Elijah (#7) and Alijah (#469), two boys' spellings one letter apart, are two separate entries. Whether any two spellings are "the same name" is not something the SSA file records, and this guide does not decide it. It follows the separate-spellings rule across the 2025 top 1,000 for each sex: a stated mechanical rule finds groups of spellings that share their consonants, and the tables show only what the SSA file records for each spelling. Nothing is merged or estimated; every number is computed at build time from the committed data described on the methodology page.
What the SSA counts as one entry
Four of the SSA's own qualifications, restated on our methodology page, decide what a "name" is in this data. Spelling variants are counted separately: each distinct string of letters is its own entry with its own rank and count. Hyphens and spaces are removed before counting, so a hyphenated or two-word first name becomes one run of letters. A given name must be at least two characters long to be on record. And any spelling given to fewer than 5 babies of one sex in a year is left out of the file.
The committed 2025 lists are consistent with those rules: across the 2,000 entries in the two top-1,000 lists, none contain a hyphen, a space or any character other than a letter. The shortest boy spellings in the 2025 top 1,000 are 2 letters long: 2 names, from Bo (#449) to Ty (#813). The shortest girl spellings are 3 letters long: 26 names, from Mia (#6) to Tru (#974).
The provenance examples, looked up
Our provenance document, restating the SSA's background page, illustrates the spelling rule with Caitlin, Kaitlyn and Katelyn, and the hyphen rule with Julie-Anne, Julie Anne and Julieanne, which the SSA records as one entry. Looking those spellings up in the committed 2025 girls' data gives the following.
- Caitlin is not in the 2025 girls' top 1,000, and not among the 50 C names on the letter list, which reaches rank #924 (Clare, 283 babies) — outside the committed depth.
- Kaitlyn charts at #802 for girls in 2025, with 340 babies.
- Katelyn is not in the 2025 girls' top 1,000, and not among the 50 K names on the letter list, which reaches rank #830 (Kyra, 329 babies) — outside the committed depth.
- Julieanne is not in the 2025 girls' top 1,000, and not among the 50 J names on the letter list, which reaches rank #1,036 (Jovi, 241 babies) — outside the committed depth.
"Outside the committed depth" is the precise phrase: a spelling missing from both lists may sit lower in the SSA file or may have been given fewer than 5 times, and the committed data cannot tell those cases apart.
A mechanical rule for finding spelling groups
To show the convention at scale rather than by anecdote, this page groups spellings with a rule
simple enough to check by hand. Each spelling is lower-cased; ph is written as
f and c as k; doubled letters are collapsed to one; and every run of
vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y) is replaced by a single dot. Two spellings fall in the same group when
the result — call it the skeleton — is identical. Madelyn, Madilyn, Madelynn, Madilynn and Madalyn
all reduce to m·d·l·n.
Applied to the 2025 girls' top 1,000, the rule finds 169 groups
of two or more spellings, covering 562 of the 1,000 names; 93 of the groups are pairs. For boys it finds 155 groups covering 405 names, 105 of them pairs.
The largest girls' group has 24 spellings on the skeleton
·l·n·, from Eliana (#10) to Alianna (#938); the largest boys' group has 11 on
k·s·n, from Kayson (#264) to Cason (#846).
Those largest groups are also the rule's clearest limitation. A skeleton of 2 consonants for girls and 3 for boys is shared by every spelling that agrees on those consonants, whatever its vowels; the rule knows which letters a spelling contains and nothing more. We make no judgment about which groups are "the same name"; the SSA keeps every spelling separate, and so does every table on this site. The groups below are chosen by a stated size rule — at least 4 consonants in the skeleton and at least 3 spellings in the group — not by opinion.
Girls: groups with 4 or more consonants
In the 2025 girls' top 1,000, 6 groups meet that size rule; the table lists the 3 largest by number of spellings, ties ordered by the rank of each group's leading spelling. Every row is one spelling's own 2025 rank and count, and no row adds spellings together.
| Rank | Spelling | Babies | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
Skeleton m·d·l·n — 5 spellings
| |||
| #71 | Madelyn | 3,362 | Top 100 |
| #464 | Madilyn | 662 | 101–500 |
| #524 | Madelynn | 573 | 501–1,000 |
| #860 | Madilynn | 315 | 501–1,000 |
| #946 | Madalyn | 273 | 501–1,000 |
Skeleton kh·rl· — 4 spellings
| |||
| #133 | Charlie | 2,160 | 101–500 |
| #417 | Charlee | 750 | 101–500 |
| #496 | Charli | 597 | 101–500 |
| #760 | Charley | 356 | 501–1,000 |
Skeleton m·d·s·n — 3 spellings
| |||
| #40 | Madison | 4,945 | Top 100 |
| #319 | Madisson | 958 | 101–500 |
| #439 | Maddison | 703 | 101–500 |
Boys: groups with 4 or more consonants
In the 2025 boys' top 1,000, 6 groups meet that size rule; the table lists the 3 largest by number of spellings, ties ordered by the rank of each group's leading spelling. Every row is one spelling's own 2025 rank and count, and no row adds spellings together.
| Rank | Spelling | Babies | Tier |
|---|---|---|---|
Skeleton m·h·m·d — 4 spellings
| |||
| #239 | Muhammad | 1,473 | 101–500 |
| #527 | Mohamed | 568 | 501–1,000 |
| #562 | Mohammad | 529 | 501–1,000 |
| #595 | Mohammed | 486 | 501–1,000 |
Skeleton w·st·n — 3 spellings
| |||
| #55 | Weston | 5,482 | Top 100 |
| #689 | Westin | 396 | 501–1,000 |
| #724 | Westyn | 371 | 501–1,000 |
Skeleton n·th·n — 3 spellings
| |||
| #63 | Nathan | 4,975 | Top 100 |
| #723 | Neithan | 371 | 501–1,000 |
| #926 | Neythan | 255 | 501–1,000 |
Where three consonants are too few
Drop the bar to 3 consonants and the girls'
groups grow but blur. The largest such group in the 2025 girls' top 1,000
has 8 spellings on m·l·n·: Melanie (#142), Milani (#288), Malani (#374), Melany (#399), Meilani (#591), Melina (#660), Milana (#812) and Milena (#950).
Drop the bar to 3 consonants and the boys'
groups grow but blur. The largest such group in the 2025 boys' top 1,000
is the same k·s·n group of 11 spellings described above.
Next, k·l·n with 9: Callan (#190), Colin (#343), Killian (#418), Collin (#493), Cillian (#507), Callen (#516), Kylan (#579), Kylian (#624) and Kylen (#879).
Some spellings in those groups differ by a single letter; others share only their consonants. The rule reports both the same way, which is why this site uses no rule to merge counts.
Pairs one letter apart
The cleanest demonstrations are groups of exactly two spellings that differ by one letter: one added, one dropped or one swapped. The 2025 girls' list has 67 such pairs and the boys' list 75. The tables show the 6 pairs on each list whose leading spelling ranks highest.
| Spelling | Rank | Babies | Spelling | Rank | Babies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evelyn | #8 | 9,123 | Evelynn | #301 | 1,012 |
| Chloe | #23 | 6,203 | Khloe | #272 | 1,149 |
| Zoe | #31 | 5,646 | Zoey | #69 | 3,427 |
| Scarlett | #32 | 5,644 | Scarlet | #510 | 581 |
| Gianna | #33 | 5,634 | Giana | #921 | 285 |
| Grace | #38 | 5,127 | Gracie | #227 | 1,344 |
| Spelling | Rank | Babies | Spelling | Rank | Babies |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elijah | #7 | 11,111 | Alijah | #469 | 651 |
| Mateo | #8 | 11,045 | Matteo | #146 | 2,455 |
| Lucas | #10 | 10,219 | Lukas | #288 | 1,161 |
| Ethan | #24 | 7,852 | Eithan | #97 | 3,636 |
| Matthew | #32 | 7,003 | Mathew | #975 | 235 |
| Miles | #44 | 6,072 | Myles | #100 | 3,511 |
The widest rank gap inside a one-letter pair on the 2025 girls' list separates Gianna (#33) from Giana (#921), 888 places; on the boys' list it separates Matthew (#32) from Mathew (#975), 943 places. Whether the two "belong" together is not something the SSA file records.
C and K
The rule treats c and k alike, which surfaces one specific kind of pair. In the 2025 data, 12 of the girls' groups contain both a C-spelling and a K-spelling, such as Chloe (#23) and Khloe (#272); 23 boys' groups do, such as Carter (#45) and Karter (#270). Counted as initials, 52 top-1,000 girl names begin with C and 64 with K, carrying 6.2% and 3.6% of top-1,000 girl births; for boys the figures are 79 and 74 names, at 7.6% and 4.0%. The boy and girl letter pages list each of them with its overall rank.
Why NewbornNames never merges spellings
Our provenance document states the position directly: a "true" popularity that merged spellings would differ from the SSA's figures, and we do not attempt to compute one. First, there is no licensed rule for which spellings belong together. The skeleton rule above is about as simple as such a rule gets, and in 2025 it already puts 24 girls' spellings and 11 boys' spellings into single groups; any rule tight enough to avoid that would be a judgment, and the data contains none.
Second, a merged number would not be the SSA's number: every count on this site can be checked line by line against the SSA archive, and a sum of several lines cannot. Third, rank is defined per spelling, per sex, per year — worked through in reading ranks and counts — and re-ranking merged totals would silently change the meaning of every rank on the site. So every figure on this page is one spelling's own 2025 rank or count, exactly as the SSA file carries it: Eliana (#10) and Alianna (#938) share a skeleton and keep their separate ranks, and so do Kayson (#264) and Cason (#846). The methodology page lists the caveats that travel with every figure, and the guides index covers the rest of the dataset's conventions.
Frequently asked questions
Does the SSA combine spellings such as Evelyn and Evelynn?
No. Each spelling is its own entry with its own rank and count. In the 2025 file Evelyn is #8 for girls with 9,123 babies and Evelynn is #301 with 1,012. The SSA lists both and adds neither to the other.
What happens to hyphenated or two-word first names?
The SSA removes hyphens and spaces before counting, so its own example Julie-Anne, Julie Anne and Julieanne is one entry. In the committed 2025 top-1,000 lists, none of the 2,000 entries contains anything but letters, and Julieanne is not in the 2025 girls' top 1,000, and not among the 50 J names on the letter list, which reaches rank #1,036 (Jovi, 241 babies) — outside the committed depth.
How were the spelling groups on this page chosen?
By a stated rule: lower-case the spelling, write ph as f and c as k, collapse doubled letters, and turn every run of vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y) into one dot; identical results share a group. In 2025 that gives 169 girls' groups and 155 boys' groups. The tables keep groups with at least 4 consonants and 3 spellings, and two-spelling groups one letter apart.
Is a merged total a better measure of how common a name is?
It is a different measure, and not one the SSA publishes. It depends on deciding which spellings belong together, and the data contains no such decision: the rule on this page already puts 24 girls' spellings in one group in 2025, from Eliana (#10) to Alianna (#938). The SSA's figure is the rank and count of one exact spelling in one year.
If a spelling is missing from the lists, was it not used?
Not necessarily. The SSA leaves out any spelling given to fewer than 5 babies of one sex in a year, and this site's lists stop at rank 1,000 and at 50 names per letter. Caitlin is not in the 2025 girls' top 1,000, and not among the 50 C names on the letter list, which reaches rank #924 (Clare, 283 babies) — outside the committed depth. The committed data cannot say which case applies.
Does a spelling's rank depend on any other spelling's count?
No. Rank is a spelling's position within one sex for one year, ordered by its own count, with ties broken alphabetically. Kaitlyn holds #802 for girls in 2025 on its own 340 babies, whatever any other spelling recorded. The reading-ranks guide works through the definition.
Source: every name, rank, and count on this page comes from the U.S. Social Security Administration's national baby-names dataset (2025 data, from Social Security card applications). It is public-domain U.S. government data; names given fewer than 5 times in a year are excluded by the SSA, spelling variants are counted separately, and the data covers U.S. births only. Full caveats on the methodology page.