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Denis vs Denna

American parents have registered 21,606 Denises since 1880, against 2,377 Dennas. Denis is still ahead, with 101 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Denis Denna

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

Denis has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1969, when Denis had 207 and Denna had 102.

Side by side

  Denis Denna
Total US births 21,6062,377
Most in one year 625102
Babies in 2025 101under 5
Estimated living today 15,0002,100
Median age today 5756
Peak year 19521969
Best rank 277th boys1,095th girls
Rank in 2025 1,708thunranked
First recorded 18801921
Girls / boys 873 / 20,7332,377 / 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.

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 Denis Denna
England and Wales 2,57411

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: Denis and Denna.