Girls' name · peaked in 1897

Iva name popularity since 1925

17,459 babies born in the US from 1925 to 2025 were named Iva (98.3% girls, 1.7% boys). Half of them were born in 1940 or earlier, so the typical Iva is about 86 years old in 2026. Iva peaked in 1897 as the #114 name for girls, and it was outside the top 1,000 in 2025.

Key facts

US babies since 1925
17,459
Named Iva, 1925–2025
Peak year
1897
#114 for girls that year
Typical age
About 86
Median birth year 1940
In 2025
Not top 1,000
#1,740 for girls in 2025
Girls / boys
98.3% girls
17,169 girls · 290 boys
Most popular in
Arkansas
4.37× its national share

Peak year is the year Iva made up the largest share of US girls, in records going back to 1880. Typical age is based on births from 1925 on, not on who is living today.

Iva births per year, 1925–2025

Babies named Iva per year, 1925–2025

The biggest year on this chart was 1925. Measured as a share of all babies, Iva peaked earlier, in 1897.

  • Steepest fall: Between 1939 and 1944, Iva's share of baby girls fell by 46%, from 1 in 2,780 to 1 in 5,160.

Shaded on the chart. This compares Iva's share of all US girls five years apart, counting only years with at least 100 babies named Iva.

Decade by decade

Babies named Iva in each decade, and its rank among girls' names in the middle year of the decade (1935, 1945 … 2025).

Decade GirlsBoys Rank
1925–29 3,43472 –
1930s 4,79397 #283
1940s 2,80745 #447
1950s 1,90053 #675
1960s 97912 #1,138
1970s 5766 #1,611
1980s 3685 #2,966
1990s 3080 #4,265
2000s 4490 #2,980
2010s 9100 #1,975
2020–25 6450 #1,740

Ranks count every name given to at least 5 girls that year, so they can go past 1,000.

Generation fingerprint

46.2% of babies named Iva from 1925 to 2025 were born in the Silent Generation years (1928–1945). The full split by generation:

Iva by generation Greatest Generation born 1925–27 12.5% Silent Generation born 1928–45 46.2% Baby Boomers born 1946–64 20.3% Gen X born 1965–80 5.8% Millennials born 1981–96 3.1% Gen Z born 1997–2012 4.1% Gen Alpha born 2013–25 7.9%

Where Iva is most popular

The index compares Iva's share of babies in each state with its share nationwide, 1925–2025 (1.50× = 50% more common). States with at least 300 babies named Iva.

StateIndexBabies
Arkansas4.37×592
Oklahoma4.13×709
West Virginia4.11×476
Kentucky3.76×829
Tennessee3.69×1,024

Names with a similar story

Of the other 1999 names on this site, these six had the share of babies closest in shape to Iva's from 1925 to 2025, however common each one got. Each line is scaled to its own high; the dashed line is Iva.

Names from the same era

Other common names that peaked within two years of Iva (1897).

Source: U.S. Social Security Administration national and state baby-name data, which covers names given to at least 5 babies of one sex in a year. About the data