Humanverse

Julia vs Julianna

American parents have registered 477,993 Julias since 1880, against 52,311 Juliannas. Julia is still ahead, with 2,172 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Julia against Julianna, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Julia Julianna

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

Julia 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 2017, when Julia had 3,125 and Julianna had 1,606.

Side by side

  Julia Julianna
Total US births 477,99352,311
Most in one year 8,8491,814
Babies in 2025 2,172779
Estimated living today 314,00051,000
Median age today 3118
Peak year 20012006
Best rank 27th girls194th girls
Rank in 2025 131st398th
First recorded 18801900
Girls / boys 476,250 / 1,74352,285 / 26

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 Julias alive today are over 31; half the Juliannas are over 18. That is 13 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 Julia Julianna
Poland 275,9853,319
France 82,5751,070
England and Wales 11,970285
Belgium 4,92511
Ireland 4,816112
Scotland 2,2783
Northern Ireland 4743

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: Julia and Julianna.