Humanverse

Arna vs Arnav

American parents have registered 3,585 Arnavs since 1880, against 624 Arnas. Arnav is still ahead, with 43 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Arna against Arnav, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Arna Arnav

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 77 years in which either name was published, Arna for 44 years and Arnav for 33 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Arna Arnav
Total US births 6243,585
Most in one year 29249
Babies in 2025 1543
Estimated living today 4703,500
Median age today 1115
Peak year 20212011
Best rank 4,607th girls855th boys
Rank in 2025 7,133rd2,884th
First recorded 19031991
Girls / boys 624 / 00 / 3,585

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 Arnavs alive today are over 15; half the Arnas are over 11. That is 4 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 Arna Arnav
England and Wales 123638
France 1520

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: Arna and Arnav.