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Rolan vs Rolanda

American parents have registered 3,417 Rolandas since 1880, against 1,084 Rolans. But in 2025 it was Rolan that was commoner, 17 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Rolan against Rolanda, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Rolan Rolanda

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 108 years in which either name was published, Rolanda for 59 years and Rolan for 49 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Rolan Rolanda
Total US births 1,0843,417
Most in one year 33176
Babies in 2025 17under 5
Estimated living today 7703,100
Median age today 1851
Peak year 20211971
Best rank 3,427th boys798th girls
Rank in 2025 5,399thunranked
First recorded 19151944
Girls / boys 0 / 1,0843,386 / 31

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 Rolandas alive today are over 51; half the Rolans are over 18. That is 33 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 Rolan Rolanda
England and Wales 133

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: Rolan and Rolanda.