Humanverse

Hollie vs Hollyann

American parents have registered 19,906 Hollies since 1880, against 619 Hollyanns. Hollie is still ahead, with 60 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hollie against Hollyann, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hollie Hollyann

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

Hollie 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 1988, when Hollie had 440 and Hollyann had 63.

Side by side

  Hollie Hollyann
Total US births 19,906619
Most in one year 66263
Babies in 2025 60under 5
Estimated living today 17,000600
Median age today 4234
Peak year 19831988
Best rank 347th girls1,934th girls
Rank in 2025 2,822ndunranked
First recorded 18801958
Girls / boys 18,453 / 1,453619 / 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 Hollies alive today are over 42; half the Hollyanns are over 34. That is 8 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 Hollie Hollyann
England and Wales 17,99911

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: Hollie and Hollyann.