Humanverse

Praise vs Pranav

American parents have registered 4,225 Pranavs since 1880, against 1,359 Praises. But in 2025 it was Praise that was commoner, 121 babies to 56.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Praise Pranav

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 41 years in which either name was published, Pranav for 38 years and Praise for 3 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Praise Pranav
Total US births 1,3594,225
Most in one year 121236
Babies in 2025 12156
Estimated living today 1,3004,200
Median age today 817
Peak year 20252004
Best rank 2,645th girls767th boys
Rank in 2025 2,645th2,421st
First recorded 19901977
Girls / boys 933 / 4260 / 4,225

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 Pranavs alive today are over 17; half the Praises are over 8. That is 9 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 Praise Pranav
England and Wales 499600
France 16515
Ireland 4417

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: Praise and Pranav.