Humanverse

Zenia vs Zenna

American parents have registered 1,770 Zenias since 1880, against 529 Zennas. Zenia is still ahead, with 17 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Zenia against Zenna, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Zenia Zenna

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 107 years in which either name was published, Zenia for 94 years and Zenna for 13 years. The lead changed hands 19 times.

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

Side by side

  Zenia Zenna
Total US births 1,770529
Most in one year 4324
Babies in 2025 1712
Estimated living today 1,500380
Median age today 3212
Peak year 19882023
Best rank 2,489th girls5,248th girls
Rank in 2025 6,546th8,362nd
First recorded 18911890
Girls / boys 1,770 / 0529 / 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 Zenias alive today are over 32; half the Zennas are over 12. That is 20 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 Zenia Zenna
England and Wales 12959

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 Zenna.