Humanverse

Ana vs Anabell

American parents have registered 111,960 Anas since 1880, against 1,429 Anabells. Ana is still ahead, with 1,276 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ana Anabell

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 1922, when Ana had 67 and Anabell had 5.

Side by side

  Ana Anabell
Total US births 111,9601,429
Most in one year 2,67295
Babies in 2025 1,276under 5
Estimated living today 106,0001,400
Median age today 2917
Peak year 19912013
Best rank 119th girls2,032nd girls
Rank in 2025 245thunranked
First recorded 18801922
Girls / boys 111,359 / 6011,429 / 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 Anabells are over 17. That is 12 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 Ana Anabell
England and Wales 3,07951
Poland 23723

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 Anabell.