Humanverse

Aliah vs Aliyah

American parents have registered 49,054 Aliyahs since 1880, against 5,831 Aliahs. Aliyah is still ahead, with 1,188 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Aliah against Aliyah, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Aliah Aliyah

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 54 years in which either name was published, Aliyah for 52 years and Aliah for 2 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Aliah Aliyah
Total US births 5,83149,054
Most in one year 2662,301
Babies in 2025 1931,188
Estimated living today 5,80049,000
Median age today 1314
Peak year 20152011
Best rank 1,007th girls133rd girls
Rank in 2025 1,192nd263rd
First recorded 19751971
Girls / boys 5,831 / 049,011 / 43

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.

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 Aliah Aliyah
France 2457,055
England and Wales 1874,930
Switzerland 55530

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: Aliah and Aliyah.