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Zenith vs Zenobia

American parents have registered 4,592 Zenobias since 1880, against 875 Zeniths. But in 2025 it was Zenith that was commoner, 51 babies to 18.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Zenith Zenobia

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 141 years in which either name was published, Zenobia for 135 years and Zenith for 6 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Zenith Zenobia
Total US births 8754,592
Most in one year 8262
Babies in 2025 5118
Estimated living today 6302,800
Median age today 443
Peak year 20231923
Best rank 4,999th girls928th girls
Rank in 2025 8,860th6,325th
First recorded 18971881
Girls / boys 448 / 4274,592 / 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 Zenobias alive today are over 43; half the Zeniths are over 4. That is 39 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 Zenith Zenobia
England and Wales 3628

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: Zenith and Zenobia.