Humanverse

Safia vs Safwan

American parents have registered 1,616 Safias since 1880, against 965 Safwans. Safia is still ahead, with 75 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Safia against Safwan, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Safia Safwan

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 48 years in which either name was published, Safia for 42 years and Safwan for 6 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Safia Safwan
Total US births 1,616965
Most in one year 7572
Babies in 2025 7572
Estimated living today 1,600960
Median age today 148
Peak year 20252025
Best rank 2,387th girls2,056th boys
Rank in 2025 2,387th2,056th
First recorded 19751983
Girls / boys 1,616 / 00 / 965

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 Safias alive today are over 14; half the Safwans are over 8. That is 6 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 Safia Safwan
France 7,4301,530
England and Wales 1,542967
Belgium 871520
Italy 508508
Ireland 3217
Scotland 223
Poland 182

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: Safia and Safwan.