Anise
Feminine · “Greek anison”
The anise in the King James Bible is not anise. The Greek word in Matthew is anethon, which is dill, and the translators reached for the wrong umbellifer, so a mistranslation has been read aloud in churches for four hundred years.
How old is the name Anise?
Anise first appears in US birth records in 1893 — 132 years ago. The typical Anise alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 1,000 people named Anise are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Anise most popular?
Anise peaked in 1901, reaching #1339 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 8,768 places below that high. See the whole 1901 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From anison to Anise
The story of Anise
Matthew's line about tithing mint, anise and cumin is one of the best known verses about small-scale religious bookkeeping, and the middle item is wrong. The Greek is anethon, dill; anise is anison, a different plant of the same family. The 1611 translators used anise, the Revised Version corrected it to dill, and the older wording is the one people remember. The confusion is easy to make, since anise, dill, fennel, caraway and cumin are all umbellifers with feathery leaves and aromatic seeds. Star anise adds another layer: it is not related to anise at all, but produces the same compound, anethole, which is why two unrelated plants taste identical. The name belongs to a small American habit of naming daughters for spices, alongside Ginger, Clove and Saffron.
Meaning
Greek anison, the anise plant
From Greek anison through Latin anisum and Old French anis, the plant whose seeds carry a liquorice flavor. As a personal name it belongs to the small nineteenth-century American set taken from herbs and spices. The peak is 1901.
How the name formed
- anison
- anisum
- Anise
Related forms: Anis · Anis
Pronouncing Anise
AN-iss
Two syllables, stress on the first. Some say uh-NEESE, following the French, and both are current for the spice as well as the name.
Nicknames for Anise
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1893
- Most girls named
- 199223 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1339reached in 1901
- Change vs 2023
- +12.5%9 in 2025, from 8
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Anise in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Anis in French — same name
- Anis in Spanish — same name
Anises among us
people named Anise are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Anise
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
Fashion outlook
Anise sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Anise beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Anise in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The word is concrete, familiar and pleasant.
- Five letters and two syllables.
- It is genuinely rare without being invented.
- Two pronunciations are in use and neither is wrong.
- It is a spice name, which some settings will hear as unusual.
- It is close in sound to Anna, Anais and Denise.
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Anise
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Anises are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Anise are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Anise in 2025?
- Anise ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Anise?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Anise — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Anise with classmates?
- Anise will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Anise
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Anise? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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