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Boys' name · 148,096 recorded births

Colin

#343 in the US in 2025

Where Colin stands

United States register · 1880–2025

#343boys’ names · US 2025

Colin was the 343rd most registered boys' name in the United States in 2025, on 950 births.

peak 2004 · 5,122188019532025

Its moment was 2004, when 5,122 babies were given it. In 11 of the years between, the name fell under the 5-birth floor and the registrar published nothing — those years are the marks along the base of the chart, not gaps in the name's use.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

#343US rank, 2025 (boys)
950US births in 2025
#85its best US rank, in 2004
2004peak year — 5,122 births
133,706US births since 1880
14,212NZ births since 1900
178E&W births, 2019–2025
Saved in this browser only — no account, nothing sent anywhere.

How Colin's figures are worked out

  1. Counts come straight from the registrars: the US Social Security Administration (1880–2025) and the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs (1900–2025). Nothing is scraped from another names site. The SSA files are the agency's own, retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified.
  2. Ranks are computed against every name in that year's file, not just the ones this site publishes pages for — otherwise a rank would flatter every name we happen to list.
  3. The curve is drawn on births per 100,000 of that sex, not raw counts. Raw counts across eras are misleading: far more births were registered in 1957 than in 1890, so a flat count is a falling share.
  4. The reporting floor. Each registrar publishes a name only once it clears a threshold — 5 births of that sex in the US, 10 in New Zealand. Expressed as a share that threshold is itself a curve, and it is drawn on every chart here as the shaded band along the base.
  5. A missing year is a suppressed value, never a zero. Where the registrar published nothing, this site prints “below floor” or “<5”, the curve is broken rather than drawn across the gap, and the missing years are marked on the floor line. Colin was under the floor in 11 years of its US record.
share per 100,000 = births ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000
reporting floor (share) = 5 ÷ all births of that sex that year × 100,000

Full methodology →

Colin in the United States

188019001920194019601980200020200.0129258
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 5-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Colin in the United States, 1880–2025

Between 2016 and 2025 the name has been falling — down 49% as a share of boys' births.

SOURCE·US Social Security Administration, national baby-name data·Public domain. retrieved from the Internet Archive's 2026 snapshot of ssa.gov (ssa.gov refuses automated requests); files unmodified. SSA lists a name only if it was given to at least 5 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Colin in New Zealand

In New Zealand, Colin has been registered 14,212 times since 1900, peaking in 1953 with 310 births. It did not clear the DIA's 10-birth reporting floor in 2025.

19001920194019601980200020200.09971994
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 10-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Colin in New Zealand, 1900–2025

SOURCE·NZ Department of Internal Affairs, births by first name·CC BY 4.0. DIA lists a name only if it was given to at least 10 babies of that sex that year.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Colin in England & Wales

In England and Wales, Colin was registered 178 times between 2019 and 2025, peaking in 2021 with 34 births. It ranked #1,538 for boys in 2025 on 17 births. Across those years it has been falling.

2020NOT PUBLISHED — BELOW THE 3-BIRTH FLOOR0.05.812
Births per 100,000 of that sex, so eras compare fairly. The shaded band is the 3-birth reporting floor — under it the registrar publishes nothing, so a line that stops has left the record, not fallen to zero. Colin in England and Wales, 2019–2025

Seven years is a window, not a history. Unlike the American and New Zealand series this one cannot show you a name's arrival or its long decline — ONS publishes the full list only from 2019. England and Wales only: Scotland and Northern Ireland publish separately and are not counted here.

SOURCE·Office for National Statistics, baby names in England and Wales·Open Government Licence v3.0. ONS redacts any name given to 2 or fewer babies of that sex that year, under s40 of the Freedom of Information Act.·REVIEWED JUL 2026

Decade by decade in the US

US rank and births at each decade markSSA · JUL 2026
YearRankBirths
1880#8096
1890#8846
1900below floor<5
1910#1,5895
1920#1,08942
1930#1,05343
1940#81858
1950#476195
1960#463295
1970#314624
1980#2041,196
1990#1222,782
2000#1173,256
2010#1113,489
2020#2871,177

<5 = the SSA published no figure for that year. It is a suppressed value, not a zero.

Where in the United States

The states that registered Colin most often since 1880. These are lifetime totals, so they track state population as much as local taste — a name common in Wyoming will never out-count California.

StateBirths
California12,641
New York10,010
Pennsylvania8,694
Illinois7,749
Massachusetts6,444
Ohio6,439
Texas6,118
New Jersey5,364
Michigan5,222
Florida4,742

Questions about Colin

How popular is the name Colin?

Colin ranked #343 for boys in the United States in 2025, on 950 births registered with the Social Security Administration.

When was Colin most popular?

Colin peaked in 2004, when 5,122 babies in the United States were given the name.

Is Colin rising or falling?

Measured as a share of all boys' births, Colin has been falling between 2016 and 2025 (-49%).

Same sex, peaking within a few years of 2004, at a comparable scale. Not a taste engine — this is arithmetic on peak years, which is why it will occasionally hand you something unfashionable that is nonetheless exactly of the period.

SOURCE·US SSA (1880–2025) + NZ DIA (1900–2025) birth registrations·ranks and shares computed from the source files, see method·REVIEWED JUL 2026

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Published by

Amit Sharma

Auckland real-estate agent and marketer. Builds free, sourced data tools.