Humanverse

Zelia vs Zelinda

American parents have registered 1,177 Zelias since 1880, against 47 Zelindas. Zelia is still ahead, with 33 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Zelia against Zelinda, 1880 to 2025 0 10 20 30 40 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Zelia Zelinda

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 105 years in which either name was published, Zelia for 99 years and Zelinda for 6 years. The lead changed hands 8 times.

Side by side

  Zelia Zelinda
Total US births 1,17747
Most in one year 3311
Babies in 2025 33under 5
Estimated living today 59040
Median age today 1371
Peak year 20251951
Best rank 4,265th girls3,284th girls
Rank in 2025 4,265thunranked
First recorded 18831951
Girls / boys 1,177 / 047 / 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 Zelindas alive today are over 71; half the Zelias are over 13. That is 58 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 Zelia Zelinda
France 3,63510

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: Zelia and Zelinda.