Humanverse

Orlan vs Orlanda

American parents have registered 960 Orlans since 1880, against 792 Orlandas. Orlan is still ahead, with 7 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Orlan Orlanda

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 94 years in which either name was published, Orlan for 56 years and Orlanda for 38 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Orlan Orlanda
Total US births 960792
Most in one year 3235
Babies in 2025 7under 5
Estimated living today 280640
Median age today 6854
Peak year 19261970
Best rank 1,278th boys1,743rd boys
Rank in 2025 9,714thunranked
First recorded 18981915
Girls / boys 0 / 960254 / 538

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 Orlans alive today are over 68; half the Orlandas are over 54. That is 14 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.

Country Orlan Orlanda
France 23510
England and Wales 269

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: Orlan and Orlanda.