Humanverse

Makana vs Makena

American parents have registered 6,652 Makenas since 1880, against 860 Makanas. Makena is still ahead, with 63 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Makana against Makena, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Makana Makena

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

Makena has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1984 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1986, when Makana had 5 and Makena had 8.

Side by side

  Makana Makena
Total US births 8606,652
Most in one year 43381
Babies in 2025 2563
Estimated living today 8506,600
Median age today 1617
Peak year 20162005
Best rank 3,681st boys717th girls
Rank in 2025 5,045th2,719th
First recorded 19861984
Girls / boys 343 / 5176,568 / 84

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.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

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

Country Makana Makena
England and Wales 311

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: Makana and Makena.