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Bradie vs Bradley

American parents have registered 314,957 Bradleys since 1880, against 783 Bradies. Bradley is still ahead, with 830 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bradie against Bradley, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bradie Bradley

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

Bradley 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 1920, when Bradie had 14 and Bradley had 92.

Side by side

  Bradie Bradley
Total US births 783314,957
Most in one year 377,262
Babies in 2025 17830
Estimated living today 670279,000
Median age today 2142
Peak year 20081980
Best rank 5,574th girls51st boys
Rank in 2025 6,546th403rd
First recorded 19141880
Girls / boys 582 / 2011,949 / 313,008

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 Bradleys alive today are over 42; half the Bradies are over 21. That is 21 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 Bradie Bradley
England and Wales 7730,349

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: Bradie and Bradley.