Humanverse

Anessa vs Anetta

American parents have registered 2,876 Anessas since 1880, against 569 Anettas. Anessa is still ahead, with 34 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Anessa against Anetta, 1880 to 2025 0 40 80 120 160 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Anessa Anetta

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 110 years in which either name was published, Anessa for 59 years and Anetta for 51 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Anessa Anetta
Total US births 2,876569
Most in one year 12618
Babies in 2025 34under 5
Estimated living today 2,800320
Median age today 2263
Peak year 20071962
Best rank 1,726th girls2,922nd girls
Rank in 2025 4,172ndunranked
First recorded 19671902
Girls / boys 2,876 / 0569 / 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 Anettas alive today are over 63; half the Anessas are over 22. That is 41 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 Anessa Anetta
England and Wales 103

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: Anessa and Anetta.