Humanverse

Allen vs Allysia

American parents have registered 273,662 Allens since 1880, against 615 Allysias. Allen is still ahead, with 507 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Allen against Allysia, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Allen Allysia

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

Allen 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 1997, when Allen had 1,415 and Allysia had 36.

Side by side

  Allen Allysia
Total US births 273,662615
Most in one year 5,20336
Babies in 2025 507under 5
Estimated living today 166,000600
Median age today 5628
Peak year 19511997
Best rank 72nd boys3,224th girls
Rank in 2025 578thunranked
First recorded 18801974
Girls / boys 1,866 / 271,796615 / 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 Allens alive today are over 56; half the Allysias are over 28. 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 Allen Allysia
England and Wales 27719

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: Allen and Allysia.