Humanverse

Zenia vs Zenith

American parents have registered 1,770 Zenias since 1880, against 875 Zeniths. But in 2025 it was Zenith that was commoner, 51 babies to 17.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Zenia against Zenith, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Zenia Zenith

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 113 years in which either name was published, Zenia for 79 years and Zenith for 34 years. The lead changed hands 21 times.

14 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Zenia Zenith
Total US births 1,770875
Most in one year 4382
Babies in 2025 1751
Estimated living today 1,500630
Median age today 324
Peak year 19882023
Best rank 2,489th girls4,999th girls
Rank in 2025 6,546th8,860th
First recorded 18911897
Girls / boys 1,770 / 0448 / 427

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 Zenias alive today are over 32; half the Zeniths are over 4. That is 28 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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 Zenia Zenith
England and Wales 12936

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: Zenia and Zenith.