Humanverse

Lance vs Landis

American parents have registered 106,184 Lances since 1880, against 2,560 Landises. Lance is still ahead, with 279 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lance against Landis, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lance Landis

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 127 years in which either name was published, Lance for 125 years and Landis for 2 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Lance Landis
Total US births 106,1842,560
Most in one year 4,17344
Babies in 2025 27911
Estimated living today 92,0001,900
Median age today 4532
Peak year 19702006
Best rank 76th boys2,881st boys
Rank in 2025 862nd7,194th
First recorded 18991907
Girls / boys 345 / 105,839261 / 2,299

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 Landises are over 32. 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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