Humanverse

Canaan vs Candie

American parents have registered 6,167 Canaans since 1880, against 2,985 Candies. Canaan is still ahead, with 218 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Canaan against Candie, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Canaan Candie

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 84 years in which either name was published, Candie for 48 years and Canaan for 36 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Canaan Candie
Total US births 6,1672,985
Most in one year 385113
Babies in 2025 218under 5
Estimated living today 6,1002,700
Median age today 1150
Peak year 20161984
Best rank 669th boys1,173rd girls
Rank in 2025 1,044thunranked
First recorded 19731911
Girls / boys 324 / 5,8432,985 / 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 Candies alive today are over 50; half the Canaans are over 11. That is 39 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Canaan and Candie.