Lanay vs Lance
American parents have registered 106,184 Lances since 1880, against 580 Lanays. Lance is still ahead, with 279 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Lanay Lance
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
Lance has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1899 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.
The closest they came was 2011, when Lanay had 26 and Lance had 575.
Side by side
| Lanay | Lance | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 580 | 106,184 |
| Most in one year | 26 | 4,173 |
| Babies in 2025 | 5 | 279 |
| Estimated living today | 560 | 92,000 |
| Median age today | 27 | 45 |
| Peak year | 2011 | 1970 |
| Best rank | 5,207th girls | 76th boys |
| Rank in 2025 | 14,942nd | 862nd |
| First recorded | 1957 | 1899 |
| Girls / boys | 580 / 0 | 345 / 105,839 |
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 Lances alive today are over 45; half the Lanays are over 27. That is 18 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Compare something else
Related comparisons
Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Lanay and Lance.