Head to head · Girls' names
Capri vs Cassidy
#546 vs #541 in 2025
Cassidy is a whisker ahead (#541 vs #546 in 2025), but the curves point different ways: Cassidy is stepping back from its peak, Capri is climbing the charts fast. On momentum, Capri has the edge.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
The tale of the tape
On the charts, Cassidy leads 4 measures of 6; Capri leads 2.
Ranks, counts and years are measured in the official US birth record; the classroom and living figures are estimates computed from it. The dot marks the side each measure favours on the charts — more common, not better.
What the records say
146 years of US births, drawn on one scale
Two curves, one scale
Who owned which decade
- 1950s: Capri #4540, Cassidy — — Capri higher
- 1960s: Capri #4624, Cassidy #7471 — Capri higher
- 1970s: Capri #4223, Cassidy #2250 — Cassidy higher
- 1980s: Capri #3055, Cassidy #638 — Cassidy higher
- 1990s: Capri #2607, Cassidy #218 — Cassidy higher
- 2000s: Capri #2843, Cassidy #173 — Cassidy higher
- 2010s: Capri #1374, Cassidy #291 — Cassidy higher
- 2020s: Capri #607, Cassidy #480 — Cassidy higher
Cassidy stood higher in 6 of 8 decades; Cassidy has held the lead since the 1970s.
Rank by decade
| Decade | Capri | Cassidy |
|---|---|---|
| 1950s | #4540 | — |
| 1960s | #4624 | #7471 |
| 1970s | #4223 | #2250 |
| 1980s | #3055 | #638 |
| 1990s | #2607 | #218 |
| 2000s | #2843 | #173 |
| 2010s | #1374 | #291 |
| 2020s | #607 | #480 |
Average national rank across each decade. A dash means the name sat outside the recorded top of that decade.
The names themselves
Meaning, roots, sound and the people who carried each
Where each name comes from
Capri
From the island of Capri, in the Bay of Naples
The island's own name has two long-standing readings: Latin capreae, 'goats', which is how Roman writers understood it, and Greek kapros, 'wild boar'. A third view holds the name older than either language, inherited from a pre-Greek people of the coast. As a given name, what is certain is the place.
Capreae → Capri (Italian island) → Capri (English given name)
How it traveled
The name belongs to a small island off the Sorrentine coast, and it was already famous in the first century, when the emperor Tiberius withdrew there and governed Rome from its cliffs. Capri stayed on the map of European travel ever after, drawing northern writers and painters through the nineteenth century, and in the twentieth it turned into shorthand for Mediterranean leisure — the 1934 song "The Isle of Capri", the cropped trousers named for the island in the late 1940s, the boats and the blue grotto.
Cassidy
descendant of Caiside; from Irish cas, 'curly-haired'
The surname Ó Caiside means 'descendant of Caiside', and the personal name Caiside is built on the Irish word cas, 'curly' — so the sense reaching back through it is 'curly-haired one'.
Caiside → Ó Caiside → Cassidy
How it traveled
The Cassidys were an Irish family of Fermanagh, hereditary physicians to the Maguire lords there, and their surname — Ó Caiside — traveled with Irish emigration into English-speaking countries. In America the name became a fixture of Western storytelling: the outlaw Robert LeRoy Parker took Butch Cassidy as his alias, and the late-1960s film about him and the Sundance Kid put the word in front of an enormous audience.
Where a reading is contested the note says so — this page does not turn a guess into a fact. The chain is each name's recorded forms, oldest first; the story is its opening, told in full on the name's own page.
Out loud, and in short
Capri
kuh-PREE
American use puts the stress on the second syllable, matching the song title most people half-remember. Italian says it the other way round, KAH-pree, with the weight up front — worth knowing if the family has Italian speakers in it.
- Cap — The most natural clipping in English; informal, family use.
- Cappy — Playful diminutive; used within families rather than as a standalone given name.
- Ri — Informal, drawn from the second syllable; shared with names like Marie and Rian.
Cassidy
KASS-ih-dee
Stress on the first syllable, the middle one very light. English speakers read it correctly on sight; the Irish original, Ó Caiside, sounds close to oh-KASH-ih-djeh.
- Cass — The most common short form, used for Cassidy and for Cassandra alike; also given on its own.
- Cassie — Informal and long-established; stands alone as a given name in its own right.
- Cassidy — Frequently used in full — three syllables is short enough that many bearers never shorten it at all.
Is it right for you
The differences that decide it, laid out by what you want
Choose by what you want
Choose Capri if you want…
- a name on the way upup 136 places on the charts in five years
- a name with fewer syllablesCapri is 2 syllables to Cassidy's 3
Choose Cassidy if you want…
- a name past its most crowded yearsCassidy is stepping back from its peak
- a name with more sound in itCassidy runs 3 syllables, Capri 2
Each line is a measured difference between the two names — a rank, a count, a recorded form — never a judgement of either. Save the one that answers your question; it lands on your shortlist.
The trade-offs, name by name
Capri
Strengths
- Two syllables, spelled exactly as it sounds, and already known worldwide as a place — no spelling out, no explaining where it comes from.
- Recognizable in Italian, English, Spanish and beyond, since the island's name travels unchanged.
- Rare enough that a Capri is unlikely to share her name with anyone in her school.
To consider
- Capri Sun has been in American lunchboxes for decades, and some children will make the joke. It tends to be a short-lived one, but it will happen.
- It is a place name, so it may occasionally be heard as a destination rather than a person — the same trade-off carried by Florence, Siena and Georgia.
- Use is climbing steadily rather than holding flat, so the name may feel less unusual by the time she is grown than it does now.
Cassidy
Strengths
- One standard spelling that almost everyone reads and writes correctly on the first try, backed by a surname long familiar in English.
- Ready-made short forms — Cass and Cassie — both of which already work as names on their own.
- A documented Irish family line behind it, which matters to parents who want an ancestral rather than an invented name.
To consider
- The best-known bearer of the name in American memory is an outlaw, and Butch Cassidy is still the first association for many people. It is affectionate rather than damaging, but it will come up.
- Surname-names ending in -y for girls — Cassidy among them — carry a fairly clear sense of when they were fashionable, so the name reads as belonging to a particular stretch of decades rather than as timeless.
- Because Cass and Cassie are shared with Cassandra, expect people to guess wrong about the full name, and expect Cassidy to be misheard as Cassandra now and then.
Documented properties of each name — how it spells, travels and shortens — not opinions about the child.
How each is likely to age
Capri
50%chance Capri feels dated by 2040
Capri is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
Cassidy
65%chance Cassidy feels dated by 2040
Cassidy is coming down from a big peak (#99 in 1999). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A reading of where each name sits on the long naming cycle — computed, not measured, and explained on the data page.
With your last name
Say both in full. The notes are facts about letters and sound — a rhyme, a shared initial, the monogram — not a verdict on either name.
Type a last name to hear Capri and Cassidy in full.
Weighing the whole shortlist? Run the full comparison — up to eight names with your last name, initials, classroom projections and a printable report.
Decide together
Nobody names a baby alone
Still torn between Capri and Cassidy?
Put both to the vote.
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More than two in the running? Settle it with a bracket or run the full comparison with your last name.
More head-to-heads
Same measures, different pair. Sixty more are dealt daily in the arena.
Lists these names appear on
Where Capri and Cassidy each sit in the library — alternatives in the same style, ranked by the same records.
Capri or Cassidy — the short answers
- Which is more popular, Capri or Cassidy?
- Cassidy, in 2025: Cassidy ranked #541 with 558 babies; Capri ranked #546 with 551 babies.
- Which name is rising faster, Capri or Cassidy?
- Capri. Over the last five years Capri moved up 136 places; Cassidy moved down 130 places.
- Which is the older name, Capri or Cassidy?
- Capri entered the US charts in 1953; Cassidy entered the US charts in 1969. On the American record, Capri is the older name.
- How many people are named Capri and Cassidy?
- About 6,400 people named Capri are estimated to be alive in the US today. About 60,000 people named Cassidy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- Will there be other Capris or Cassidys in the classroom?
- Capri will almost certainly be the only one in school. Cassidy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
US figures from the Social Security Administration, 1880–2025. Votes are battle voters on this site, not the birth record. Data & methodology
Keep playing
Sixty more head-to-heads are dealt in the arena every day — or line up Capri, Cassidy and the rest of your shortlist with your last name in one printable report.
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