Arlan vs Arlie

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Arlan Arlie

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 145 years in which either name was published, Arlie for 135 years and Arlan for 10 years. The lead changed hands 16 times.

• 1880–1986 Arlie ahead, apart from 3 short spells
• 1989–1991 Arlan ahead
• 1995–2025 Arlie ahead, apart from one short spell

10 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

• Arlan Minnesota (11.8×), North Dakota (10.2×), Iowa (9.8×)
• Arlie West Virginia (14.2×), Kentucky (11.1×), Arkansas (6.4×)

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

• Arlan vs Arlene
• Arlan vs Arlo
• Arlan vs Arline
• Arlan vs Arleen
• Arlan vs Arlen
• Arlie vs Arlene
• Arlie vs Arlo
• Arlie vs Arline