Humanverse

Ayan vs Ayanah

American parents have registered 4,942 Ayans since 1880, against 514 Ayanahs. Ayan is still ahead, with 361 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ayan against Ayanah, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ayan Ayanah

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

Ayan has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1975 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1997, when Ayan had 22 and Ayanah had 13.

Side by side

  Ayan Ayanah
Total US births 4,942514
Most in one year 36133
Babies in 2025 36120
Estimated living today 4,900510
Median age today 817
Peak year 20252007
Best rank 762nd boys4,475th girls
Rank in 2025 762nd5,917th
First recorded 19751995
Girls / boys 851 / 4,091514 / 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 Ayanahs alive today are over 17; half the Ayans are over 8. That is 9 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 Ayan Ayanah
England and Wales 3,020120
France 2,055200
Switzerland 44410

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: Ayan and Ayanah.