Humanverse

Ashley vs Ashur

American parents have registered 875,722 Ashleys since 1880, against 794 Ashurs. Ashley is still ahead, with 1,856 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ashley against Ashur, 1880 to 2025 0 15k 30k 45k 60k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ashley Ashur

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

Ashley has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2021, when Ashley had 1,731 and Ashur had 42.

Side by side

  Ashley Ashur
Total US births 875,722794
Most in one year 55,26549
Babies in 2025 1,85632
Estimated living today 853,000790
Median age today 3410
Peak year 19872024
Best rank 2nd girls2,674th boys
Rank in 2025 164th3,513th
First recorded 18801979
Girls / boys 859,857 / 15,8650 / 794

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.

Which name is older

Half of the Ashleys alive today are over 34; half the Ashurs are over 10. That is 24 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Ashley Ashur
England and Wales 15,1867

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

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Ashley and Ashur.