Humanverse

Liam vs Liana

American parents have registered 359,085 Liams since 1880, against 20,666 Lianas. Liam is still ahead, with 20,846 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Liam against Liana, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Liam Liana

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 88 years in which either name was published, Liana for 50 years and Liam for 38 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Liam Liana
Total US births 359,08520,666
Most in one year 22,288801
Babies in 2025 20,846801
Estimated living today 356,00020,000
Median age today 815
Peak year 20242025
Best rank 1st boys385th girls
Rank in 2025 1st385th
First recorded 19471929
Girls / boys 549 / 358,53620,666 / 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 Lianas alive today are over 15; half the Liams are over 8. That is 7 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 Liam Liana
England and Wales 61,2451,787
France 49,9204,395
Ireland 15,061102
Scotland 13,614108
Belgium 10,458986
Italy 11,041241
Switzerland 6,7751,452
Norway 5,486306
Northern Ireland 1,65715
Poland 1,53092

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: Liam and Liana.