Lanny
An Anglicized form of the French given name Laurent, meaning "laurel tree".
Name Census estimates that about 6,367 living Americans carry the first name Lanny. It is a predominantly male name (99.3% of registrations). The average person named Lanny today is around 68 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Lanny births was 1949 (498 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Lanny. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Although Lanny is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 67 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • The typical person named Lanny is about 68 years old today, placing it firmly among the names of earlier generations. Most living Lannys were born before 1968.
People living today
6.4K
~ 1 in 53,833 Americans
Peak year
1949
498 babies that year
Average age
68
years old
2024 SSA rank
#13,366
Tracked since 1919
Census
Lanny in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 6,683 people with the first name Lanny, which placed it at #3,218 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#3,218
National first-name rank
People counted
6.7K
6,683 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
86.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Lanny
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lanny is White at 86.2%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (4.5%) and Black (3.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Lanny described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Lanny at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White86.2% · 5,764
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.5% · 298
- Black or African American3.7% · 246
- Hispanic or Latino2.9% · 191
- Two or more races2.1% · 138
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 46
Gender
Gender distribution for Lanny
Out of the 9,644 babies given the name Lanny since 1880, 99.3% were registered as male. The name sits firmly on the male side of the spectrum, with only a handful of female registrations across the entire dataset.
Lanny as a male name
- Ranked #13,366 in 2024
- 5 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1949 (498 births)
Lanny as a female name
- Ranked #18,621 in 2010
- 5 female births in 2010
- Peak: 1952 (7 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lanny leans strongly male. 6,264 people counted with this name were male (93.6%), compared with 427 female bearers (6.4%).
Popularity
Lanny: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Lanny from the 1910s through to the 2020s, spanning 12 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1940s, with 3,352 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1940s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Lanny by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Lanny during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Lannys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 37 states and territories. Texas, California, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Lanny, while Montana, Maryland, Arizona recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 182 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Lanny
The name Lanny is a diminutive form of the masculine given name Landon, which has English origins. The name Landon is derived from the Old English words "lan" meaning "long" and "dun" meaning "hill." It is believed to have originated as a surname referring to someone who lived near a long hill or ridge.
Lanny first appeared as a shortened version of Landon in the late 19th century, becoming more popular as a given name in its own right in the early 20th century. The earliest recorded use of the name Lanny is found in United States census records from the late 1800s.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Lanny was Lanny Ross, an American singer and actor born in 1892. Ross was a popular radio crooner during the 1930s and 1940s and appeared in several films during this time period.
Another notable Lanny from the early 20th century was Lanny Budd, the protagonist of a series of historical novels by American author Upton Sinclair. The first book in the series, "World's End," was published in 1940 and followed the life of Lanny Budd, a fictional character born in 1900 who witnessed many major events of the 20th century.
In the world of sports, Lanny McDonald was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1973 to 1989. He was born in 1953 and is best known for his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Calgary Flames, where he won the Stanley Cup in 1989.
Lanny Poffo, born in 1954, is an American professional wrestler and writer, best known for his time in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) under the ring name "The Genius." He is the younger brother of "Macho Man" Randy Savage, another famous wrestler.
More recently, Lanny Jared Cordola, born in 1990, is an American musician and singer-songwriter. He is the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Girlpool, which formed in Los Angeles in 2013.
Notable bearers
Famous people named Lanny
People
Lanny + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Lanny as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with L
Other first names starting with L with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Lanny: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Lanny?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 6,367 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Lanny going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 53,833 US residents.
Is Lanny a common name?
We classify Lanny as "Rare". It ranks above 97% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 9,644 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Lanny most popular?
The single biggest year for Lanny was 1949, when 498 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Lanny is about 68 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Lanny in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 6,683 people with the name Lanny, or 2.21 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,218 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Lanny in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Lanny?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Lanny leans strongly male. 6,264 people counted with this name were male (93.6%), compared with 427 female bearers (6.4%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Lanny?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Lanny is White at 86.2%. The next largest groups are Asian/Pacific Islander (4.5%) and Black (3.7%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Lanny most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Lanny in the 2020 Census, accounting for 86.2% (5,764 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Lanny in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Lanny a male name?
Yes, 99.3% of people registered as Lanny in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Lanny still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Lanny in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Lanny can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Lanny?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.