The Persian century ends: Ragdoll takes the crown the show cats held for a hundred years

Asked:

popularity of cats breeds through 20 and 21 century

Seventy top-10 breed rankings from CFA-style registration snapshots (2002, 2006, 2012, 2015, 2021–2023), 25 UK GCCF registration rows for 2023–2025, and historical accounts of the 20th-century cat fancy. Ranks count registered pedigreed cats only — the ordinary mixed-breed house cat is outside every one of these tables.

Documented eras of the 20th century

Continuous, standardized breed rankings for 1900–1999 do not exist in a comparable series, so the last century is told as documented eras, not fake annual precision.

1880s–1930s

The fancy is born

The Siamese arrived in the West after the king of Siam gifted a pair to an English consul-general in 1880; it became one of the most popular breeds in Europe and North America by the turn of the century (osmarks.net, thesprucepets.com).

1930s–1950s

Siamese and Persian rule the shows

Siamese popularity soared in the years directly preceding and following the Second World War; Siamese and Persians dominated the show scene, with classes of well over a hundred Siamese commonplace (cfa.org).

1950s–1990s

The breed explosion

Over 85% of the modern fancy's 40–50 pedigreed breeds arose only in the 75 years before 2013, mostly through selection on single-gene aesthetic traits — the pool the 21st century now picks its favourites from (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov).

US top-10 rank, 2002–2023: the generational handoff

One line per breed across seven CFA-style registration snapshots. Warm lines are the 20th-century signature breeds; cool lines the modern favourites. Hover a line or dot for detail.

The UK tells a different story

GCCF registrations 2023–2025: British Shorthair is #1 at home by a wide margin, ahead of Ragdoll and Maine Coon. Persian sits eighth. Where the archived 2024 table and the newer official 2024–2025 PDF disagree, the newer values are shown and the revision is flagged below.

Persian held #1 in 2002, 2006 and 2012, slipped to #2 in 2015 behind Exotic (its own shorthaired derivative), then to #4 in 2021–22 and #3 in 2023 — cfa.org

Siamese, the most-imitated breed of the pre-war fancy, fell from #4 in 2002 and 2006 to #9 in 2012 and out of these top-10 snapshots entirely after that — petplace.com

Ragdoll entered the top 10 at #5 in 2006, reached #1 by 2021 and stayed there through 2023, with Maine Coon a constant #2 — cfa.org

Modern arrivals Sphynx (2006), Devon Rex (2012), Scottish Fold and British Shorthair (2012–2015) and Siberian (2023) filled the seats the old show breeds vacated — cfa.org

UK 2024 revision: the newer official PDF lifts British Shorthair from 6,415 to 6,481 registrations, Ragdoll from 3,043 to 3,061, Maine Coon from 2,612 to 2,642 — gccfcats.org

The rows

US snapshots as a rank grid; UK registrations with counts beneath it.

Year	Rank	Breed	Registrations	Source

Method: 70 US top-10 rank rows from CFA-style registration snapshots for 2002, 2006, 2012, 2015, 2021, 2022 and 2023, plus 30 UK GCCF rows for 2023–2025 (25 after preferring the newer official 2024–2025 PDF where the archived 2024 table duplicates a breed). Rank measures share of new pedigreed-cat registrations in each registry-year; it says nothing about the mixed-breed cats that make up the vast majority of household cats. No continuous 1900–1999 ranking series exists, so the 20th century is described from documented historical sources. UK 2025 covers the five breeds published in the 2024–2025 PDF sample.

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