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Anika vs Anilah

American parents have registered 16,804 Anikas since 1880, against 513 Anilahs. Anika is still ahead, with 269 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Anika against Anilah, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Anika Anilah

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

Anika has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1961 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2023, when Anika had 287 and Anilah had 24.

Side by side

  Anika Anilah
Total US births 16,804513
Most in one year 64240
Babies in 2025 26921
Estimated living today 17,000510
Median age today 1811
Peak year 20062012
Best rank 484th girls3,854th girls
Rank in 2025 955th5,722nd
First recorded 19612004
Girls / boys 16,804 / 0513 / 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 Anikas alive today are over 18; half the Anilahs 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 Anika Anilah
England and Wales 2,0943

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: Anika and Anilah.