Humanverse

Maleni vs Malik

American parents have registered 49,866 Maliks since 1880, against 963 Malenis. Malik is still ahead, with 724 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Maleni against Malik, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Maleni Malik

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

Malik has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1949 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2019, when Maleni had 174 and Malik had 886.

Side by side

  Maleni Malik
Total US births 96349,866
Most in one year 1744,050
Babies in 2025 67724
Estimated living today 96049,000
Median age today 523
Peak year 20191996
Best rank 1,315th girls97th boys
Rank in 2025 2,583rd437th
First recorded 19911949
Girls / boys 963 / 0259 / 49,607

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 Maliks alive today are over 23; half the Malenis are over 5. That is 18 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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