Humanverse

Isabella vs Mia

American parents have registered 417,454 Isabellas since 1880, against 310,610 Mias. But in 2025 it was Mia that was commoner, 11,087 babies to 10,666.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Isabella Mia

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 146 years in which either name was published, Isabella for 111 years and Mia for 35 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Isabella Mia
Total US births 417,454310,610
Most in one year 22,96614,960
Babies in 2025 10,66611,087
Estimated living today 406,000307,000
Median age today 1412
Peak year 20102015
Best rank 1st girls6th girls
Rank in 2025 7th6th
First recorded 18801933
Girls / boys 417,001 / 453310,219 / 391

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 Isabellas alive today are over 14; half the Mias are over 12. That is 2 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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Isabella Mia
England and Wales 60,51268,567
Italy 15,05621,126
France 1,85029,700
Austria 9,7929,555
Spain 2,20114,568
Denmark 9,9075,745
Poland 71811,456
Norway 2,2888,539
Ireland 2,7317,002
Switzerland 1,1968,070
New Zealand 5,2363,596
Scotland 2,5324,759
Belgium 5764,402
Northern Ireland 1,1982,238

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: Isabella and Mia.