Humanverse

Esha vs Eshaal

American parents have registered 1,926 Eshas since 1880, against 805 Eshaals. But in 2025 it was Eshaal that was commoner, 37 babies to 27.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Esha against Eshaal, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Esha Eshaal

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 47 years in which either name was published, Esha for 36 years and Eshaal for 11 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Esha Eshaal
Total US births 1,926805
Most in one year 18473
Babies in 2025 2737
Estimated living today 1,900800
Median age today 198
Peak year 20022019
Best rank 1,129th girls2,428th girls
Rank in 2025 4,878th3,903rd
First recorded 19752005
Girls / boys 1,926 / 0805 / 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 Eshas alive today are over 19; half the Eshaals are over 8. That is 11 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 Esha Eshaal
England and Wales 1,5361,300
France 2540
Scotland 1150
Ireland 634

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: Esha and Eshaal.