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Bayley vs Baylor

American parents have registered 12,731 Baylors since 1880, against 2,656 Bayleys. Baylor is still ahead, with 1,229 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bayley against Baylor, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bayley Baylor

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 48 years in which either name was published, Baylor for 29 years and Bayley for 19 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Bayley Baylor
Total US births 2,65612,731
Most in one year 2061,253
Babies in 2025 311,229
Estimated living today 2,60013,000
Median age today 245
Peak year 19972024
Best rank 1,204th girls365th boys
Rank in 2025 4,460th386th
First recorded 19821918
Girls / boys 2,221 / 4353,721 / 9,010

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 Bayleys alive today are over 24; half the Baylors are over 5. That is 19 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: Bayley and Baylor.