Humanverse

Nisa vs Nisha

American parents have registered 2,994 Nishas since 1880, against 1,736 Nisas. But in 2025 it was Nisa that was commoner, 17 babies to 13.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Nisa Nisha

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 70 years in which either name was published, Nisha for 45 years and Nisa for 25 years. The lead changed hands 12 times.

6 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

  Nisa Nisha
Total US births 1,7362,994
Most in one year 97104
Babies in 2025 1713
Estimated living today 1,7002,900
Median age today 2734
Peak year 19911984
Best rank 1,575th girls1,238th girls
Rank in 2025 6,546th7,885th
First recorded 19531961
Girls / boys 1,736 / 02,994 / 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 Nishas alive today are over 34; half the Nisas are over 27. That is 7 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 Nisa Nisha
France 1,90550
England and Wales 362655
Switzerland 28351
Scotland 329

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: Nisa and Nisha.