Humanverse

Landy vs Lane

American parents have registered 52,177 Lanes since 1880, against 861 Landys. Lane is still ahead, with 1,495 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Landy against Lane, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Landy Lane

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

Lane has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1881 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1920, when Landy had 12 and Lane had 24.

Side by side

  Landy Lane
Total US births 86152,177
Most in one year 271,505
Babies in 2025 under 51,495
Estimated living today 69048,000
Median age today 4218
Peak year 19562019
Best rank 1,511th boys258th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked250th
First recorded 19171881
Girls / boys 255 / 6064,615 / 47,562

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 Landys alive today are over 42; half the Lanes are over 18. That is 24 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: Landy and Lane.