Humanverse

Anice vs Anita

American parents have registered 215,849 Anitas since 1880, against 1,001 Anices. Anita is still ahead, with 165 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Anice Anita

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

Anita 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 1887, when Anice had 8 and Anita had 41.

Side by side

  Anice Anita
Total US births 1,001215,849
Most in one year 305,831
Babies in 2025 under 5165
Estimated living today 310139,000
Median age today 7064
Peak year 19201957
Best rank 1,470th girls81st girls
Rank in 2025 unranked1,341st
First recorded 18851880
Girls / boys 1,001 / 0215,165 / 684

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 Anices alive today are over 70; half the Anitas are over 64. That is 6 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 Anice Anita
France 26529,865

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: Anice and Anita.