Humanverse

Ayaan vs Ayanah

American parents have registered 9,154 Ayaans since 1880, against 514 Ayanahs. Ayaan is still ahead, with 686 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Ayaan Ayanah

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 31 years in which either name was published, Ayaan for 25 years and Ayanah for 6 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Ayaan Ayanah
Total US births 9,154514
Most in one year 68633
Babies in 2025 68620
Estimated living today 9,100510
Median age today 717
Peak year 20252007
Best rank 465th boys4,475th girls
Rank in 2025 465th5,917th
First recorded 19951995
Girls / boys 251 / 8,903514 / 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 Ayanahs alive today are over 17; half the Ayaans are over 7. That is 10 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 Ayaan Ayanah
England and Wales 8,714120
France 890200
Switzerland 12110

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: Ayaan and Ayanah.