9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data

Tessa vs Ava

How Tessa and Ava 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

Tessa

Female · Greek

Meaning: Born Fourth

Ava

Female · English

Meaning: Variant Of Medieval Given Names Avis And Aveline

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Tessa (girls) vs Ava (girls), 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 Tessa Ava
Peak year (most US births) 2007 — 1,753 girls 2007 — 18,053 girls
Peak rank #190 #4
Most recent rank (2025) #311 (978 births) #11 (7,732 births)
Total US births since 1880 33,252 323,669
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 11,483 125,221

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Ava reached 18,053 US births in 2007 — 16,300 more than Tessa'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 girls-name list.

Tessa — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Massachusetts #140 383
2 Utah #156 258
3 Connecticut #157 185
4 North Dakota #159 22
5 Alaska #161 23

Ava — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Mississippi #1 1,585
2 Georgia #2 4,911
3 Alabama #2 2,308
4 South Carolina #3 2,038
5 North Carolina #3 4,560

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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 →