Humanverse

Janae vs Janice

American parents have registered 407,605 Janices since 1880, against 18,058 Janaes. But in 2025 it was Janae that was commoner, 122 babies to 70.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Janae against Janice, 1880 to 2025 0 4k 8k 12k 16k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Janae Janice

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 128 years in which either name was published, Janice for 94 years and Janae for 34 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Janae Janice
Total US births 18,058407,605
Most in one year 58915,981
Babies in 2025 12270
Estimated living today 18,000273,000
Median age today 2671
Peak year 20001951
Best rank 471st girls21st girls
Rank in 2025 1,684th2,514th
First recorded 19391894
Girls / boys 18,052 / 6406,448 / 1,157

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 Janices alive today are over 71; half the Janaes are over 26. That is 45 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 Janae Janice
France 90 JanaƩ1,080
England and Wales 313326

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: Janae and Janice.