Humanverse

Kanani vs Kane

American parents have registered 19,557 Kanes since 1880, against 900 Kananis. Kane is still ahead, with 695 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kanani against Kane, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kanani Kane

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

Kane has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1953 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1982, when Kanani had 24 and Kane had 65.

Side by side

  Kanani Kane
Total US births 90019,557
Most in one year 311,055
Babies in 2025 13695
Estimated living today 88019,000
Median age today 2511
Peak year 20002018
Best rank 3,983rd girls319th boys
Rank in 2025 7,885th451st
First recorded 19641953
Girls / boys 895 / 536 / 19,521

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 Kananis alive today are over 25; half the Kanes are over 11. That is 14 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Kanani and Kane.