Humanverse

Violette vs Viona

American parents have registered 6,403 Violettes since 1880, against 611 Vionas. Violette is still ahead, with 298 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Violette against Viona, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Violette Viona

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 129 years in which either name was published, Violette for 128 years and Viona for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Violette Viona
Total US births 6,403611
Most in one year 29822
Babies in 2025 2989
Estimated living today 4,200220
Median age today 810
Peak year 20251920
Best rank 893rd girls1,816th girls
Rank in 2025 893rd10,107th
First recorded 18861902
Girls / boys 6,403 / 0611 / 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 Vionas alive today are over 10; half the Violettes are over 8. That is 2 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 Violette Viona
France 24,35510
England and Wales 23410

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: Violette and Viona.