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Isham vs Ishani

American parents have registered 1,250 Ishanis since 1880, against 615 Ishams. Ishani is still ahead, with 68 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Isham Ishani

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 Ishani for 33 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Isham Ishani
Total US births 6151,250
Most in one year 2768
Babies in 2025 under 568
Estimated living today 1301,200
Median age today 5311
Peak year 19222025
Best rank 1,434th boys2,564th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,564th
First recorded 18801989
Girls / boys 0 / 6151,250 / 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 Ishams alive today are over 53; half the Ishanis are over 11. That is 42 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 Isham Ishani
France 18015

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: Isham and Ishani.