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Elani vs Elayna

American parents have registered 5,251 Elaynas since 1880, against 2,485 Elanis. But in 2025 it was Elani that was commoner, 322 babies to 171.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Elani Elayna

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 62 years in which either name was published, Elayna for 58 years and Elani for 4 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Elani Elayna
Total US births 2,4855,251
Most in one year 322228
Babies in 2025 322171
Estimated living today 2,5005,200
Median age today 513
Peak year 20252014
Best rank 844th girls1,112th girls
Rank in 2025 844th1,299th
First recorded 19861958
Girls / boys 2,485 / 05,251 / 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 Elaynas alive today are over 13; half the Elanis are over 5. That is 8 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 Elani Elayna
England and Wales 60263

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: Elani and Elayna.