Humanverse

Anneli vs Annette

American parents have registered 169,795 Annettes since 1880, against 494 Annelis. Annette is still ahead, with 149 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Anneli against Annette, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Anneli Annette

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

Annette 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 2020, when Anneli had 22 and Annette had 177.

Side by side

  Anneli Annette
Total US births 494169,795
Most in one year 237,158
Babies in 2025 16149
Estimated living today 490121,000
Median age today 1362
Peak year 20181960
Best rank 5,454th girls62nd girls
Rank in 2025 6,838th1,443rd
First recorded 19671880
Girls / boys 494 / 0169,296 / 499

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 Annettes alive today are over 62; half the Annelis are over 13. That is 49 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Anneli Annette
Norway 6382,431
England and Wales 45193

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: Anneli and Annette.