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Neo vs Neola

American parents have registered 3,123 Neos since 1880, against 1,014 Neolas. Neo is still ahead, with 204 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Neo Neola

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 87 years in which either name was published, Neola for 59 years and Neo for 28 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Neo Neola
Total US births 3,1231,014
Most in one year 24040
Babies in 2025 204under 5
Estimated living today 3,100140
Median age today 783
Peak year 20221918
Best rank 947th boys1,184th girls
Rank in 2025 1,064thunranked
First recorded 19901888
Girls / boys 6 / 3,1171,014 / 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 Neolas alive today are over 83; half the Neos are over 7. That is 76 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 Neo Neola
France 4,020 Néo5
England and Wales 1,61715

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: Neo and Neola.