Humanverse

Fanchon vs Fanta

American parents have registered 1,168 Fantas since 1880, against 519 Fanchons. Fanta is still ahead, with 30 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Fanchon against Fanta, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Fanchon Fanta

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 97 years in which either name was published, Fanchon for 54 years and Fanta for 43 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Fanchon Fanta
Total US births 5191,168
Most in one year 4966
Babies in 2025 under 530
Estimated living today 2301,200
Median age today 3919
Peak year 19871977
Best rank 2,199th girls1,609th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked4,546th
First recorded 18971977
Girls / boys 519 / 01,168 / 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 Fanchons alive today are over 39; half the Fantas are over 19. That is 20 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 Fanchon Fanta
France 3803,420
Belgium 538

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: Fanchon and Fanta.