Humanverse

Sanjaya vs Santana

American parents have registered 13,726 Santanas since 1880, against 49 Sanjayas. Santana is still ahead, with 377 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sanjaya against Santana, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sanjaya Santana

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

Santana has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1910 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2007, when Sanjaya had 41 and Santana had 258.

Side by side

  Sanjaya Santana
Total US births 4913,726
Most in one year 41654
Babies in 2025 under 5377
Estimated living today 5013,000
Median age today 1816
Peak year 20072020
Best rank 3,687th boys542nd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked855th
First recorded 20071910
Girls / boys 13 / 365,941 / 7,785

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 Sanjayas alive today are over 18; half the Santanas are over 16. That is 2 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Sanjaya and Santana.