Humanverse

Niva vs Nivia

American parents have registered 560 Nivias since 1880, against 526 Nivas. But in 2025 it was Niva that was commoner, 38 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Niva against Nivia, 1880 to 2025 0 10 20 30 40 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Niva Nivia

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 75 years in which either name was published, Nivia for 48 years and Niva for 27 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Niva Nivia
Total US births 526560
Most in one year 3826
Babies in 2025 38under 5
Estimated living today 490530
Median age today 1037
Peak year 20251980
Best rank 3,832nd girls3,215th girls
Rank in 2025 3,832ndunranked
First recorded 19131950
Girls / boys 526 / 0560 / 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 Nivias alive today are over 37; half the Nivas are over 10. That is 27 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 Niva Nivia
Switzerland 3711

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: Niva and Nivia.