Humanverse

Ann vs Annie

American parents have registered 471,625 Anns since 1880, against 362,180 Annies. But in 2025 it was Annie that was commoner, 1,690 babies to 225.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ann against Annie, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ann Annie

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 146 years in which either name was published, Annie for 83 years and Ann for 63 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Ann Annie
Total US births 471,625362,180
Most in one year 9,0687,513
Babies in 2025 2251,690
Estimated living today 257,000112,000
Median age today 6664
Peak year 19571922
Best rank 44th girls30th girls
Rank in 2025 1,076th182nd
First recorded 18801880
Girls / boys 470,261 / 1,364360,253 / 1,927

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 Anns alive today are over 66; half the Annies are over 64. That is 2 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Ann Annie
France 590210,225
Ireland 13,0042,521
Norway 12,8321,139
England and Wales 87911,799
Scotland 1,4411,239
Northern Ireland 321,592
Belgium 98107

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: Ann and Annie.