Zena vs Zenobia
American parents have registered 5,986 Zenas since 1880, against 4,592 Zenobias. Zena is still ahead, with 73 babies in 2025.
Babies given each name, 1880–2025
Zena Zenobia
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 146 years in which either name was published, Zena for 88 years and Zenobia for 58 years. The lead changed hands 32 times.
- 1887–1905 Zena ahead, apart from 2 short spells
- 1912–1959 Zenobia ahead, apart from 3 short spells
- 1960–1974 Zena ahead
- 1975–1979 Zenobia ahead
- 1980–2025 Zena ahead, apart from one short spell
22 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.
Side by side
| Zena | Zenobia | |
|---|---|---|
| Total US births | 5,986 | 4,592 |
| Most in one year | 222 | 62 |
| Babies in 2025 | 73 | 18 |
| Estimated living today | 4,300 | 2,800 |
| Median age today | 35 | 43 |
| Peak year | 1964 | 1923 |
| Best rank | 689th girls | 928th girls |
| Rank in 2025 | 2,438th | 6,325th |
| First recorded | 1880 | 1881 |
| Girls / boys | 5,986 / 0 | 4,592 / 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 Zenobias alive today are over 43; half the Zenas are over 35. That is 8 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.
Where each one is strongest
- Zena New York (3.2×), California (2.5×), Florida (1.7×)
- Zenobia Arkansas (9.8×), Louisiana (6.7×), New York (3.3×)
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 | Zena | Zenobia |
|---|---|---|
| England and Wales | 497 | 28 |
| France | 265 | 5 |
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: Zena and Zenobia.