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Isiah vs Isis

American parents have registered 24,721 Isiahs since 1880, against 11,893 Isises. But in 2025 it was Isis that was commoner, 128 babies to 120.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Isiah against Isis, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Isiah Isis

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 146 years in which either name was published, Isiah for 134 years and Isis for 12 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Isiah Isis
Total US births 24,72111,893
Most in one year 822561
Babies in 2025 120128
Estimated living today 19,00012,000
Median age today 2520
Peak year 20012005
Best rank 336th boys522nd girls
Rank in 2025 1,477th1,622nd
First recorded 18801901
Girls / boys 11 / 24,71011,881 / 12

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 Isiahs alive today are over 25; half the Isises are over 20. That is 5 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 Isiah Isis
France 1053,285
England and Wales 341612

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: Isiah and Isis.