Humanverse

Keanan vs Keanu

American parents have registered 8,920 Keanus since 1880, against 623 Keanans. Keanu is still ahead, with 427 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Keanan against Keanu, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Keanan Keanu

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 41 years in which either name was published, Keanu for 35 years and Keanan for 6 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Keanan Keanu
Total US births 6238,920
Most in one year 48562
Babies in 2025 under 5427
Estimated living today 6108,800
Median age today 2411
Peak year 19972020
Best rank 1,908th boys515th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked648th
First recorded 19771990
Girls / boys 0 / 623225 / 8,695

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 Keanans alive today are over 24; half the Keanus are over 11. That is 13 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 Keanan Keanu
England and Wales 2191,046
Belgium 5470
France 30245

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: Keanan and Keanu.