Humanverse

Diana vs Diane

American parents have registered 520,034 Dianes since 1880, against 369,771 Dianas. But in 2025 it was Diana that was commoner, 1,277 babies to 66.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Diana against Diane, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Diana Diane

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, Diana for 103 years and Diane for 43 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Diana Diane
Total US births 369,771520,034
Most in one year 9,45923,343
Babies in 2025 1,27766
Estimated living today 309,000394,000
Median age today 5669
Peak year 19571955
Best rank 43rd girls14th girls
Rank in 2025 244th2,607th
First recorded 18801898
Girls / boys 368,487 / 1,284518,651 / 1,383

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 Dianes alive today are over 69; half the Dianas are over 56. That is 13 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 Diana Diane
France 10,23024,580
Poland 6,4603
New Zealand 9773,952
England and Wales 3,423295
Scotland 3872,223
Switzerland 2,195302
Ireland 9231,064
Belgium 901456
Northern Ireland 4112

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: Diana and Diane.