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Sanjaya vs Santos

American parents have registered 21,573 Santoses since 1880, against 49 Sanjayas. Santos is still ahead, with 337 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Sanjaya against Santos, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Sanjaya Santos

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

Santos has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2007, when Sanjaya had 41 and Santos had 278.

Side by side

  Sanjaya Santos
Total US births 4921,573
Most in one year 41337
Babies in 2025 under 5337
Estimated living today 5016,000
Median age today 1831
Peak year 20072025
Best rank 3,687th boys763rd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked763rd
First recorded 20071880
Girls / boys 13 / 362,759 / 18,814

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 Santoses alive today are over 31; half the Sanjayas are over 18. That is 13 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 Santos.