Humanverse

Ishaan vs Isham

American parents have registered 5,462 Ishaans since 1880, against 615 Ishams. Ishaan is still ahead, with 266 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ishaan against Isham, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ishaan Isham

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 100 years in which either name was published, Isham for 67 years and Ishaan for 33 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Ishaan Isham
Total US births 5,462615
Most in one year 28927
Babies in 2025 266under 5
Estimated living today 5,400130
Median age today 1053
Peak year 20191922
Best rank 794th boys1,434th boys
Rank in 2025 893rdunranked
First recorded 19901880
Girls / boys 0 / 5,4620 / 615

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 Ishams alive today are over 53; half the Ishaans are over 10. That is 43 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 Ishaan Isham
France 150180

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: Ishaan and Isham.