Leander vs Leanna
American parents have registered 25,937 Leannas since 1880, against 6,956 Leanders. Leanna is still ahead, with 300 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Leander Leanna
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, Leanna for 106 years and Leander for 40 years. The lead changed hands 19 times.
- 1880–1887 Leander ahead
- 1894–1905 Leanna ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 1911–1936 Leander ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 1937–2025 Leanna ahead
12 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Leander | Leanna | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 6,956 | 25,937 |
| Most in one year | 122 | 675 |
| Babies in 2025 | 122 | 300 |
| Estimated living today | 4,000 | 23,000 |
| Median age today | 36 | 31 |
| Peak year | 2025 | 1990 |
| Best rank | 1,459th boys | 389th girls |
| Rank in 2025 | 1,459th | 890th |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 28 / 6,928 | 25,932 / 5 |
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 Leanders alive today are over 36; half the Leannas are over 31. That is 5 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Leander Arizona (7.8×), Minnesota (6.8×), North Carolina (4.7×)
- Leanna California (1.7×), Washington (1.6×), Oregon (1.6×)
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 | Leander | Leanna |
|---|---|---|
| France | 20 | 1,955 Léanna |
| Belgium | 1,069 | 59 Léanna |
| England and Wales | 208 | 712 |
| Switzerland | 311 | 41 |
| Scotland | 3 | 89 |
| Poland | 7 | 4 |
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: Leander and Leanna.