Humanverse

Ani vs Anissa

American parents have registered 12,503 Anissas since 1880, against 3,188 Anis. But in 2025 it was Ani that was commoner, 56 babies to 53.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ani against Anissa, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ani Anissa

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 63 years in which either name was published, Anissa for 55 years and Ani for 8 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Ani Anissa
Total US births 3,18812,503
Most in one year 127729
Babies in 2025 5653
Estimated living today 3,10012,000
Median age today 1931
Peak year 20071971
Best rank 1,760th girls348th girls
Rank in 2025 2,957th3,067th
First recorded 19581966
Girls / boys 3,183 / 512,498 / 5

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 Anissas alive today are over 31; half the Anis are over 19. That is 12 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 Ani Anissa
France 28519,545
Belgium 231,725
England and Wales 213232

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: Ani and Anissa.