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Hannah vs Hanne

American parents have registered 466,406 Hannahs since 1880, against 183 Hannes. Hannah is still ahead, with 3,973 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hannah against Hanne, 1880 to 2025 0 6k 12k 18k 24k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hannah Hanne

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

Hannah 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 1961, when Hannah had 150 and Hanne had 7.

Side by side

  Hannah Hanne
Total US births 466,406183
Most in one year 23,11211
Babies in 2025 3,9736
Estimated living today 441,000180
Median age today 2426
Peak year 20002002
Best rank 2nd girls8,837th girls
Rank in 2025 56th13,208th
First recorded 18801961
Girls / boys 465,685 / 721183 / 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 Hannes alive today are over 26; half the Hannahs are over 24. That is 2 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 Hannah Hanne
England and Wales 68,07416
Norway 4,06515,550
Belgium 2,8675,357
Poland 7784

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: Hannah and Hanne.