Orla vs Orlena

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Orla Orlena

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 124 years in which either name was published, Orla for 72 years and Orlena for 52 years. The lead changed hands 24 times.

• 1880–1885 Orla ahead
• 1891–1913 Orlena ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1916–1930 Orla ahead
• 1938–1955 Orlena ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1956–1967 Orla ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1969–1983 Orlena ahead
• 1991–2025 Orla ahead

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

Side by side

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 Orlenas alive today are over 54; half the Orlas are over 9. That is 45 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.

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

• Orla vs Orlando
• Orla vs Orland
• Orla vs Orlin
• Orla vs Orlan
• Orla vs Orlo
• Orla vs Orly
• Orlena vs Orlando
• Orlena vs Orland