Humanverse

Lev vs Leva

American parents have registered 3,083 Levs since 1880, against 823 Levas. Lev is still ahead, with 236 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lev against Leva, 1880 to 2025 0 60 120 180 240 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lev Leva

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 115 years in which either name was published, Leva for 68 years and Lev for 47 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Lev Leva
Total US births 3,083823
Most in one year 23633
Babies in 2025 2367
Estimated living today 3,100110
Median age today 775
Peak year 20251921
Best rank 999th boys1,409th girls
Rank in 2025 999th11,932nd
First recorded 19711883
Girls / boys 84 / 2,999823 / 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 Levas alive today are over 75; half the Levs are over 7. That is 68 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 Lev Leva
France 22010 Léva

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: Lev and Leva.