Humanverse

Brynlee vs Brynley

American parents have registered 22,250 Brynlees since 1880, against 3,425 Brynleys. Brynlee is still ahead, with 1,282 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Brynlee Brynley

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 32 years in which either name was published, Brynlee for 31 years and Brynley for 1 year. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Brynlee Brynley
Total US births 22,2503,425
Most in one year 1,583219
Babies in 2025 1,282196
Estimated living today 22,0003,400
Median age today 79
Peak year 20192017
Best rank 186th girls1,131st girls
Rank in 2025 243rd1,183rd
First recorded 19951992
Girls / boys 22,229 / 213,425 / 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 Brynleys alive today are over 9; half the Brynlees are over 7. That is 2 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Brynlee Brynley
England and Wales 7218

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: Brynlee and Brynley.