9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data Italiano

Ayan vs James

How Ayan and James compare across 146 years of US Social Security Administration baby-name records — popularity history, peak years, current rank, and which name overtook which.

Open Name Tournament

Ayan

Female · African

Meaning: Somali Female Name Meaning "Bright."

James

Male · English

Meaning: Replace

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Ayan (boys) vs James (boys), from US Social Security Administration national records.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Names appearing fewer than 5 times per year are suppressed by SSA.

Quick Stats

Metric Ayan James
Peak year (most US births) 2025 — 338 boys 1947 — 94,763 boys
Peak rank #762 #1
Most recent rank (2025) #762 (338 births) #6 (11,945 births)
Total US births since 1880 2,528 5,250,515
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 2,117 128,527

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, James reached 94,763 US births in 1947 — 94,425 more than Ayan's peak count.

Strongest States — Last 10 Years

States where each name ranked highest, from SSA's state-level dataset. Lower average rank = name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name list.

Ayan — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Connecticut #388 21
2 New Jersey #493 131
3 New York #509 280
4 Massachusetts #562 56
5 Illinois #628 140

James — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Mississippi #2 1,549
2 Alabama #2 2,711
3 South Carolina #3 2,285
4 Tennessee #4 3,524
5 District of Columbia #4 564

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Data & methodology

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby names dataset 1880–2025 (CC0 public domain). Names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a given year are suppressed by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Crossover detection compares annual birth counts (not ranks) for each year both names appear. Methodology: see full notes. More comparisons →