Humanverse

Anabela vs Anaya

American parents have registered 17,997 Anayas since 1880, against 529 Anabelas. Anaya is still ahead, with 911 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Anabela against Anaya, 1880 to 2025 0 250 500 750 1k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Anabela Anaya

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 53 years in which either name was published, Anaya for 43 years and Anabela for 10 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Anabela Anaya
Total US births 52917,997
Most in one year 32911
Babies in 2025 5911
Estimated living today 52018,000
Median age today 1811
Peak year 20142025
Best rank 4,455th girls336th girls
Rank in 2025 14,942nd336th
First recorded 19701978
Girls / boys 529 / 017,997 / 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 Anabelas alive today are over 18; half the Anayas are over 11. That is 7 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 Anabela Anaya
England and Wales 696,554
France 8102,290
Poland 230

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: Anabela and Anaya.