Humanverse

Lance vs Lanea

American parents have registered 106,184 Lances since 1880, against 581 Laneas. Lance is still ahead, with 279 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Lance Lanea

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 2015, when Lance had 454 and Lanea had 16.

Side by side

  Lance Lanea
Total US births 106,184581
Most in one year 4,17319
Babies in 2025 2798
Estimated living today 92,000570
Median age today 4527
Peak year 19702005
Best rank 76th boys6,245th girls
Rank in 2025 862nd10,917th
First recorded 18991952
Girls / boys 345 / 105,839581 / 0

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 Laneas 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: Lance and Lanea.