Humanverse

Dakayla vs Dakotah

American parents have registered 5,465 Dakotahs since 1880, against 501 Dakaylas. Dakotah is still ahead, with 62 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Dakayla Dakotah

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

Dakotah has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1979 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2011, when Dakayla had 23 and Dakotah had 100.

Side by side

  Dakayla Dakotah
Total US births 5015,465
Most in one year 36290
Babies in 2025 662
Estimated living today 5005,400
Median age today 1824
Peak year 20061994
Best rank 4,073rd girls728th boys
Rank in 2025 13,208th3,949th
First recorded 19951979
Girls / boys 501 / 02,314 / 3,151

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 Dakotahs alive today are over 24; half the Dakaylas are over 18. That is 6 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: Dakayla and Dakotah.