Humanverse

Annie vs Annika

American parents have registered 362,180 Annies since 1880, against 19,594 Annikas. Annie is still ahead, with 1,690 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Annie 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

Of the 146 years in which either name was published, Annie for 141 years and Annika for 5 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Annie Annika
Total US births 362,18019,594
Most in one year 7,5131,089
Babies in 2025 1,690254
Estimated living today 112,00019,000
Median age today 6419
Peak year 19222003
Best rank 30th girls285th girls
Rank in 2025 182nd995th
First recorded 18801961
Girls / boys 360,253 / 1,92719,594 / 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 Annies alive today are over 64; half the Annikas are over 19. That is 45 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 Annie Annika
France 210,22580
England and Wales 11,799896
Ireland 2,52120
Norway 1,1391,268
Scotland 1,23954
Switzerland 135941
Belgium 107115
Poland 263

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: Annie and Annika.