Humanverse

Zailee vs Zainab

American parents have registered 7,326 Zainabs since 1880, against 519 Zailees. Zainab is still ahead, with 338 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Zailee against Zainab, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Zailee Zainab

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

Zainab has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1957 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2022, when Zailee had 45 and Zainab had 298.

Side by side

  Zailee Zainab
Total US births 5197,326
Most in one year 45338
Babies in 2025 41338
Estimated living today 5207,300
Median age today 612
Peak year 20222025
Best rank 3,470th girls807th girls
Rank in 2025 3,645th807th
First recorded 20051957
Girls / boys 519 / 07,326 / 0

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 Zainabs alive today are over 12; half the Zailees are over 6. 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Zailee and Zainab.