Humanverse

Leoda vs Leona

American parents have registered 113,624 Leonas since 1880, against 539 Leodas. Leona is still ahead, with 723 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Leoda against Leona, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Leoda Leona

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

Leona 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 1941, when Leoda had 13 and Leona had 998.

Side by side

  Leoda Leona
Total US births 539113,624
Most in one year 253,346
Babies in 2025 under 5723
Estimated living today 7030,000
Median age today 8461
Peak year 19161918
Best rank 1,485th girls79th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked429th
First recorded 18951880
Girls / boys 539 / 0113,330 / 294

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 Leodas alive today are over 84; half the Leonas are over 61. That is 23 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 Leoda Leona
France 155,335

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: Leoda and Leona.