Name Awesome

Vanita

Girls' name

Literal meaning not recorded; Sanskrit origin

Vanita has been given to 2,056 babies in the U.S. since 1913. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1971, with 53 recorded.

Babies named Vanita, 2003

1 in 760,000

Vanita over time, 1880–2025

Girls
020406018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Vanita: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded; Sanskrit origin

Sanskrit

What Vanita means

Vanita is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Vanita is used in English. Its origins include Sanskrit.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,056 girls were recorded with the name Vanita between 1913 and 2003. Its highest annual count was 53 in 1971; its best national rank was #1,291 in 1932.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Vanita?

Vanita had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2003, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2003
1 in 760,000
5 of 3,801,425 births
Among girls only
1 in 365,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2003
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
526,991 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Vanita sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2003 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 526,991 children born in 2003 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Vanita. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Vanitas were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Vanita was born before 1958 — so the typical Vanita is around 67 today.

Median birth year
1958
About 67 years old
Biggest decade
1960s
18.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
15.2%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
1,297
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1960s — 18.8% of all recorded uses (387).

Is Vanita rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1971 (53)
Years since peak
54
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
28.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,291
1932

Spellings of Vanita

Vanita is not the most common spelling — Anita is, with 27.0% against Vanita's 0.26%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Vanita is used

Across 1910–2025, Vanita was most concentrated in Missouri — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 440,394 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Missouri1 in 100,000
  2. 2Texas1 in 100,000
  3. 3Arkansas1 in —
  4. 4California1 in —
  5. 5Georgia1 in —
  6. 6Iowa1 in —
  7. 7Illinois1 in —
  8. 8Michigan1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Vanita has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Vanita around the world

Where Vanita ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    2005–2005
    #3,970
    in 2005
  • South Australia
    1965–2013
    #818
    in 2013

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Vanita

People whose public names include Vanita, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Vanita by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,291
1932
Peak year
1971
53 that year
First recorded
1913
Last recorded
2003
All-time count
2,056
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Vanita

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

VanityVannaVaniaVanesaVanyaJanitaJovitaLanitaAmritaAdelitaSaritaMaritaVannieVandaKavitaAlitaVanniaLupitaCarlitaVangieVanRositaIshitaEvita

Names with a curve like Vanita

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Vanita, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

DouglasWilletteJayTheressaThomasinaHermelindaJimmyLanellJanettaFeliceJohnetteCurtis

Sibling names for Vanita

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Vanita

Top names of 1971, Vanita's peak yearThe 1970s in fullOther names that peaked in 1932Girls' names starting with VIndian Girl Names