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Malia vs Malo

American parents have registered 31,606 Malias since 1880, against 75 Malos. Malia is still ahead, with 872 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Malia against Malo, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Malia Malo

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

Malia has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1919 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1973, when Malia had 77 and Malo had 9.

Side by side

  Malia Malo
Total US births 31,60675
Most in one year 1,70011
Babies in 2025 87211
Estimated living today 31,00070
Median age today 1424
Peak year 20092025
Best rank 192nd girls7,194th boys
Rank in 2025 349th7,194th
First recorded 19191972
Girls / boys 31,606 / 00 / 75

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 Malos alive today are over 24; half the Malias are over 14. That is 10 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 Malia Malo
France 4,30528,020
Switzerland 1,287369
Belgium 463485
England and Wales 73466
Poland 172

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: Malia and Malo.