Humanverse

Manila vs Manny

American parents have registered 4,087 Mannys since 1880, against 214 Manilas. Manny is still ahead, with 37 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Manila against Manny, 1880 to 2025 0 30 60 90 120 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Manila Manny

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

Of the 125 years in which either name was published, Manny for 119 years and Manila for 6 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Manila Manny
Total US births 2144,087
Most in one year 104113
Babies in 2025 under 537
Estimated living today 83,300
Median age today 8327
Peak year 18982009
Best rank 305th girls1,472nd boys
Rank in 2025 unranked3,181st
First recorded 18971900
Girls / boys 214 / 00 / 4,087

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 Manilas alive today are over 83; half the Mannys are over 27. That is 56 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 Manila Manny
France 70450

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: Manila and Manny.