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Lataja vs Latoya

American parents have registered 45,748 Latoyas since 1880, against 106 Latajas. Latoya is still ahead, with 8 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lataja against Latoya, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lataja Latoya

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

Latoya has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1960 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1998, when Lataja had 13 and Latoya had 77.

Side by side

  Lataja Latoya
Total US births 10645,748
Most in one year 265,069
Babies in 2025 under 58
Estimated living today 10044,000
Median age today 3042
Peak year 19881984
Best rank 3,585th girls60th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked10,917th
First recorded 19881960
Girls / boys 106 / 045,563 / 185

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 Latoyas alive today are over 42; half the Latajas are over 30. That is 12 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: Lataja and Latoya.