Humanverse

Zana vs Zander

American parents have registered 28,786 Zanders since 1880, against 2,288 Zanas. Zander is still ahead, with 804 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Zana against Zander, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Zana Zander

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 127 years in which either name was published, Zana for 99 years and Zander for 28 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Zana Zander
Total US births 2,28828,786
Most in one year 2521,600
Babies in 2025 27804
Estimated living today 1,80029,000
Median age today 3111
Peak year 19942013
Best rank 802nd girls230th boys
Rank in 2025 4,878th396th
First recorded 18821915
Girls / boys 2,288 / 036 / 28,750

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 Zanas alive today are over 31; half the Zanders are over 11. That is 20 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 Zana Zander
England and Wales 2071,014
France 2905
Belgium 11387

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: Zana and Zander.