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Bayard vs Bayleigh

American parents have registered 5,190 Bayleighs since 1880, against 922 Bayards. Bayleigh is still ahead, with 78 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bayard against Bayleigh, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bayard Bayleigh

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 108 years in which either name was published, Bayard for 71 years and Bayleigh for 37 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Bayard Bayleigh
Total US births 9225,190
Most in one year 32272
Babies in 2025 under 578
Estimated living today 3105,100
Median age today 6314
Peak year 19182012
Best rank 1,231st boys939th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,326th
First recorded 18821989
Girls / boys 0 / 9225,190 / 0

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 Bayards alive today are over 63; half the Bayleighs are over 14. That is 49 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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