Humanverse

Allan vs Allysha

American parents have registered 96,711 Allans since 1880, against 515 Allyshas. Allan is still ahead, with 223 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Allan Allysha

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

Allan has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1992, when Allan had 595 and Allysha had 43.

Side by side

  Allan Allysha
Total US births 96,711515
Most in one year 2,19243
Babies in 2025 223under 5
Estimated living today 57,000510
Median age today 5931
Peak year 19471992
Best rank 132nd boys2,777th girls
Rank in 2025 1,012thunranked
First recorded 18801983
Girls / boys 253 / 96,458515 / 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 Allans alive today are over 59; half the Allyshas are over 31. That is 28 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 Allan Allysha
Scotland 4,9033
England and Wales 61051

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: Allan and Allysha.