Maha vs Mahlon
American parents have registered 5,683 Mahlons since 1880, against 2,019 Mahas. But in 2025 it was Maha that was commoner, 62 babies to 44.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Maha Mahlon
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 145 years in which either name was published, Mahlon for 123 years and Maha for 22 years. The lead changed hands 13 times.
- 1880–1991 Mahlon ahead, apart from one short spell
- 1994–2007 Maha ahead, apart from one short spell
- 2008–2022 Mahlon ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 2023–2025 Maha ahead
6 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Maha | Mahlon | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 2,019 | 5,683 |
| Most in one year | 79 | 95 |
| Babies in 2025 | 62 | 44 |
| Estimated living today | 2,000 | 2,900 |
| Median age today | 21 | 34 |
| Peak year | 2002 | 1919 |
| Best rank | 2,126th girls | 619th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 2,751st | 2,833rd |
| First recorded | 1964 | 1880 |
| Girls / boys | 2,019 / 0 | 23 / 5,660 |
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 Mahlons alive today are over 34; half the Mahas are over 21. That is 13 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Maha New York (4.0×), Michigan (3.2×), California (2.6×)
- Mahlon Pennsylvania (11.1×), Indiana (3.0×), Ohio (2.9×)
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 | Maha | Mahlon |
|---|---|---|
| France | 830 | 80 |
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: Maha and Mahlon.