Humanverse

Leah vs Leara

American parents have registered 256,954 Leahs since 1880, against 250 Learas. Leah is still ahead, with 3,880 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Leah against Leara, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Leah Leara

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

Leah has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1911, when Leah had 202 and Leara had 8.

Side by side

  Leah Leara
Total US births 256,954250
Most in one year 6,79913
Babies in 2025 3,880under 5
Estimated living today 233,000160
Median age today 2318
Peak year 20091922
Best rank 29th girls2,612th girls
Rank in 2025 58thunranked
First recorded 18801911
Girls / boys 256,488 / 466250 / 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 Leahs alive today are over 23; half the Learas are over 18. That is 5 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Leah Leara
England and Wales 33,4586
Switzerland 37531

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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