Humanverse

Ana vs Anabela

American parents have registered 111,960 Anas since 1880, against 529 Anabelas. Ana is still ahead, with 1,276 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ana against Anabela, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ana Anabela

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

Ana 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 2014, when Ana had 1,538 and Anabela had 32.

Side by side

  Ana Anabela
Total US births 111,960529
Most in one year 2,67232
Babies in 2025 1,2765
Estimated living today 106,000520
Median age today 2918
Peak year 19912014
Best rank 119th girls4,455th girls
Rank in 2025 245th14,942nd
First recorded 18801970
Girls / boys 111,359 / 601529 / 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 Anas alive today are over 29; half the Anabelas are over 18. That is 11 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 Ana Anabela
France 13,300810
England and Wales 3,07969
Poland 2372

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: Ana and Anabela.