Humanverse

Ida vs Idania

American parents have registered 188,695 Idas since 1880, against 618 Idanias. Ida is still ahead, with 209 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ida against Idania, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ida Idania

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

Ida 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 2000, when Ida had 96 and Idania had 34.

Side by side

  Ida Idania
Total US births 188,695618
Most in one year 4,47034
Babies in 2025 20914
Estimated living today 35,000610
Median age today 7125
Peak year 19182000
Best rank 57th girls3,738th girls
Rank in 2025 1,120th7,491st
First recorded 18801971
Girls / boys 187,929 / 766618 / 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 Idas alive today are over 71; half the Idanias are over 25. That is 46 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Ida and Idania.