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Anna vs Annika

American parents have registered 917,615 Annas since 1880, against 19,594 Annikas. Anna is still ahead, with 2,521 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Anna against Annika, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Anna Annika

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

Anna has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2003, when Anna had 9,477 and Annika had 1,089.

Side by side

  Anna Annika
Total US births 917,61519,594
Most in one year 15,6971,089
Babies in 2025 2,521254
Estimated living today 439,00019,000
Median age today 3319
Peak year 19182003
Best rank 10th girls285th girls
Rank in 2025 107th995th
First recorded 18801961
Girls / boys 914,859 / 2,75619,594 / 0

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 Annas alive today are over 33; half the Annikas are over 19. That is 14 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 Anna Annika
France 128,12080
Poland 88,28763
Italy 83,034459
Austria 33,0793,026
England and Wales 28,146896
Norway 18,4301,268
Ireland 12,10220
Switzerland 7,010941
Belgium 7,198115
Scotland 7,10754

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: Anna and Annika.