Humanverse

Nala vs Nalia

American parents have registered 6,138 Nalas since 1880, against 853 Nalias. Nala is still ahead, with 317 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Nala against Nalia, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Nala Nalia

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 34 years in which either name was published, Nala for 33 years and Nalia for 1 year. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Nala Nalia
Total US births 6,138853
Most in one year 42847
Babies in 2025 31747
Estimated living today 6,100850
Median age today 810
Peak year 20192025
Best rank 675th girls3,296th girls
Rank in 2025 856th3,296th
First recorded 19791982
Girls / boys 6,138 / 0853 / 0

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 Nalias alive today are over 10; half the Nalas are over 8. That is 2 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Nala Nalia
England and Wales 83514
France 430345
Switzerland 20262
Belgium 1046

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: Nala and Nalia.