Humanverse

Thane vs Thao

American parents have registered 2,604 Thanes since 1880, against 1,237 Thaos. Thane is still ahead, with 34 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Thane Thao

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 99 years in which either name was published, Thane for 79 years and Thao for 20 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Thane Thao
Total US births 2,6041,237
Most in one year 5873
Babies in 2025 345
Estimated living today 2,3001,200
Median age today 2635
Peak year 20151984
Best rank 2,276th boys1,837th girls
Rank in 2025 3,379thunranked
First recorded 19161975
Girls / boys 0 / 2,6041,040 / 197

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 Thaos alive today are over 35; half the Thanes are over 26. 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 Thane Thao
England and Wales 717

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: Thane and Thao.