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Vanity

#8,324 in 2025Girls' name

English word name: vanity

Vanity has been given to 1,858 babies in the U.S. since 1982. In 2025 it ranked #8,324 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 1988, with 116 recorded.

Babies named Vanity, 2025

1 in 255,000

Vanity over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Vanity: meaning, origin, and history

English word name: vanity

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Vanity means

Vanity takes the English word vanity into personal-name use.

Origin, language, and formation

Vanity is used in English.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,858 girls were recorded with the name Vanity between 1982 and 2025. Its highest annual count was 116 in 1988; its best national rank was #1,267 in 1988.

Over 5 years its rank fell, from #5,471 in 2020 to #8,324 in 2025. Over 10 years its rank fell, from #6,222 in 2015 to #8,324 in 2025.

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 Vanity?

Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.

Among all babies, 2025
1 in 255,000
13 of 3,315,165 births
Among girls only
1 in 124,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2025
#8,324
of 17,293 girls’ names in use
Coin-flip room size
176,762 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Vanity 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 2025 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 176,762 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Vanity. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Vanitys were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Vanity was born before 1995 — so the typical Vanity is around 30 today.

Median birth year
1995
About 30 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
31.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
41.4%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
1,858
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 31.9% of all recorded uses (592).

Is Vanity 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
−1,704
Places dropped
Rank vs 5 years ago
−2,853
Places dropped
Rank vs 10 years ago
−2,102
Places dropped
Births vs 10 years ago
0.62×
Fewer babies than then
Share of its own peak
11.2%
Peak was 1988 (116)
Years since peak
37
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
30.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,267
1988

Spellings of Vanity

Vanity is not the most common spelling — Anita is, with 85.8% against Vanity's 0.74%.

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 Vanity is used

Across 1910–2025, Vanity was most concentrated in California — about 1 in 50,000 girls, against 1 in 122,903 across all states with data. It was least common in Washington (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in 50,000
  2. 2Texas1 in 50,000
  3. 3Illinois1 in 100,000
  4. 4Louisiana1 in 100,000
  5. 5Mississippi1 in 100,000
  6. 6North Carolina1 in 100,000
  7. 7New York1 in 100,000
  8. 8Alabama1 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. Vanity has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Vanity by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
#8,324
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
Down 2,853
Best rank ever
#1,267
1988
Peak year
1988
116 that year
First recorded
1982
Last recorded
2025
All-time count
1,858
Count in 2025
13

Names similar to Vanity

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

VannaVanyaVaniaVerityVanesaVanitaVannieVandaAmityVanniaVangieVanVanettaVannesaClarityVanaTrenityVanezaUnityPurityVaniEternityCerenityVanellope

Sibling names for Vanity

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 Vanity

Top names of 1988, Vanity's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1988Girls' names starting with V