Humanverse

Manila vs Manuela

American parents have registered 11,068 Manuelas since 1880, against 214 Manilas. Manuela is still ahead, with 68 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Manila against Manuela, 1880 to 2025 0 60 120 180 240 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Manila Manuela

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 146 years in which either name was published, Manuela for 144 years and Manila for 2 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Manila Manuela
Total US births 21411,068
Most in one year 104202
Babies in 2025 under 568
Estimated living today 85,900
Median age today 8343
Peak year 18981924
Best rank 305th girls488th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,564th
First recorded 18971880
Girls / boys 214 / 011,033 / 35

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 Manuelas are over 43. That is 40 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 Manuela
France 709,560
Italy 1,1715,901

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 Manuela.