Humanverse

Hanan vs Hannah

American parents have registered 466,406 Hannahs since 1880, against 2,229 Hanans. Hannah is still ahead, with 3,973 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Hanan Hannah

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

Hannah has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1970, when Hanan had 9 and Hannah had 172.

Side by side

  Hanan Hannah
Total US births 2,229466,406
Most in one year 7223,112
Babies in 2025 673,973
Estimated living today 2,200441,000
Median age today 1824
Peak year 20162000
Best rank 2,617th girls2nd girls
Rank in 2025 2,895th56th
First recorded 19661880
Girls / boys 2,081 / 148465,685 / 721

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 Hannahs alive today are over 24; half the Hanans are over 18. That is 6 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 Hanan Hannah
England and Wales 75568,074
Scotland 311,299
France 1,3805,805
Norway 3084,065
Belgium 382,867

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: Hanan and Hannah.