Humanverse

Leola vs Leonidas

American parents have registered 28,181 Leolas since 1880, against 10,281 Leonidases. But in 2025 it was Leonidas that was commoner, 591 babies to 17.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Leola Leonidas

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, Leola for 112 years and Leonidas for 34 years. The lead changed hands 7 times.

Side by side

  Leola Leonidas
Total US births 28,18110,281
Most in one year 855760
Babies in 2025 17591
Estimated living today 5,8009,700
Median age today 747
Peak year 19202022
Best rank 226th girls421st boys
Rank in 2025 6,546th510th
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 28,129 / 520 / 10,281

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 Leolas alive today are over 74; half the Leonidases are over 7. That is 67 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 Leola Leonidas
England and Wales 651,256

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: Leola and Leonidas.