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Ane vs Anne

American parents have registered 325,954 Annes since 1880, against 290 Anes. Anne is still ahead, with 472 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ane Anne

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

Anne 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 2009, when Ane had 10 and Anne had 557.

Side by side

  Ane Anne
Total US births 290325,954
Most in one year 115,755
Babies in 2025 under 5472
Estimated living today 270189,000
Median age today 3261
Peak year 19601959
Best rank 3,920th girls82nd girls
Rank in 2025 unranked619th
First recorded 19151880
Girls / boys 290 / 0325,128 / 826

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 Annes alive today are over 61; half the Anes are over 32. That is 29 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 Ane Anne
Norway 4,54056,487
England and Wales 151,130
Switzerland 6343

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: Ane and Anne.