Anniston
Anniston was given to 139 girls in 2025, #1,525 among girls’ names; 3,660 Americans have been recorded with it since 1996 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 3,630 Americans named Anniston and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 10 years old and half are between 6 and 14.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Anniston by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Anniston mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Anniston is “a female given name transferred from the place name, of modern usage.”
The city in Alabama, originally Woodstock, was renamed by town officials in 1873 (after realizing there was another village named Woodstock in central Alabama) in honor of Annie Eliza Scott Tyler (1838–1914), daughter-in-law of Daniel Tyler, one of the two organizers of the Woodstock Iron Company, which started the then planned community. Equivalent to Annie + -s- + -ton (“Annie’s town”). The name of the city in Missouri was changed in 1894—a transfer from the city in Alabama.
/ˈænɪstən/
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Anniston?
#1,525 among girls’ names, 2025
Anniston fell from #1,039 in 2015 to #1,525 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 0.14 to 0.09 per 1,000.
302 babies in 2014, the peak
Anniston peaked in 2014, when 302 girls were given it, #898 among girls’ names. The 139 births of 2025 are 46% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 139 | #1,525 | 0.09 |
| 2024 | 163 | #1,385 | 0.10 |
| 2023 | 168 | #1,344 | 0.10 |
| 2022 | 146 | #1,490 | 0.09 |
| 2021 | 188 | #1,250 | 0.11 |
| 2020 | 157 | #1,390 | 0.10 |
| 2019 | 194 | #1,203 | 0.12 |
| 2018 | 224 | #1,101 | 0.13 |
| 2017 | 234 | #1,082 | 0.14 |
| 2016 | 273 | #980 | 0.15 |
Every recorded year (30)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 256 | #1,039 | 0.14 |
| 2014 | 302 | #898 | 0.17 |
| 2013 | 206 | #1,166 | 0.12 |
| 2012 | 204 | #1,201 | 0.12 |
| 2011 | 165 | #1,383 | 0.09 |
| 2010 | 149 | #1,502 | 0.08 |
| 2009 | 89 | #2,205 | 0.05 |
| 2008 | 59 | #2,960 | 0.03 |
| 2007 | 53 | #3,217 | 0.03 |
| 2006 | 57 | #2,983 | 0.03 |
| 2005 | 40 | #3,650 | 0.02 |
| 2004 | 43 | #3,445 | 0.02 |
| 2003 | 32 | #4,113 | 0.02 |
| 2002 | 41 | #3,336 | 0.02 |
| 2001 | 18 | #6,089 | 0.01 |
| 2000 | 11 | #8,583 | 0.01 |
| 1999 | 21 | #5,049 | 0.01 |
| 1998 | 12 | #7,571 | 0.01 |
| 1997 | 9 | #9,075 | 0.01 |
| 1996 | 7 | #10,663 | under 0.01 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Anniston a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Anniston has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 30 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Anniston: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Anniston, and how old are they?
3,630 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 99% of the 3,660 Americans ever recorded as Anniston. The median Anniston alive today is 10 years old; half are between 6 and 14.
The 2020 Census counted 2,558 people named Anniston (2,541 women and girls, 17 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 2,721 born in the U.S. The Census count is 6% below that prediction.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Millennials | 1981-1996 | 7 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 994 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 2,630 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Anniston born?
The states with the most babies named Anniston are Georgia, Texas and Tennessee, with 48% of its births recorded by state in 2025; Tennessee is not among the ten states with the most births.
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia | 16 | #646 | 3.2× |
| Texas | 16 | #1,464 | 0.6× |
| Tennessee | 11 | #649 | 3.6× |
| Louisiana | 10 | #432 | 2.7× |
| Kentucky | 9 | #448 | 3.6× |
| Alabama | 9 | #530 | 2.1× |
| North Carolina | 7 | #1,152 | 1.3× |
| Arkansas | 6 | #494 | 3.1× |
| Florida | 5 | #2,191 | 0.9× |
Where Anniston is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Anniston is most over-represented in Mississippi: since 1996 it was given 4.7 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among girls’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Anniston with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 9,517 babies since 1880, Anniston is the most given (38% of them). In 2025 it was given to 139 of their 281 babies (49%), again the most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Anniston
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Anniston and names like it
- Compare Anniston and AnistonBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sAnniston peaked in 2014.
- Georgia’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Anniston since 1910.
- From place namesWiktionary’s origin for Anniston: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2014The year the most babies were named Anniston.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Anniston alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with AMost given first.