Humanverse

Rayan vs Rayon

American parents have registered 9,953 Rayans since 1880, against 547 Rayons. Rayan is still ahead, with 534 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rayan against Rayon, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rayan Rayon

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 51 years in which either name was published, Rayan for 49 years and Rayon for 2 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Rayan Rayon
Total US births 9,953547
Most in one year 56825
Babies in 2025 5346
Estimated living today 9,900540
Median age today 917
Peak year 20232008
Best rank 561st boys4,044th boys
Rank in 2025 588th10,695th
First recorded 19731975
Girls / boys 1,058 / 8,89511 / 536

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 Rayons alive today are over 17; half the Rayans are over 9. That is 8 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 Rayan Rayon
England and Wales 5,63463

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: Rayan and Rayon.