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Chelsey vs Cherly

American parents have registered 31,563 Chelseys since 1880, against 989 Cherlys. Chelsey is still ahead, with 18 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Chelsey against Cherly, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Chelsey Cherly

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 83 years in which either name was published, Chelsey for 54 years and Cherly for 29 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Chelsey Cherly
Total US births 31,563989
Most in one year 2,88646
Babies in 2025 18under 5
Estimated living today 31,000880
Median age today 3357
Peak year 19921966
Best rank 117th girls1,646th girls
Rank in 2025 6,325thunranked
First recorded 19691943
Girls / boys 31,498 / 65989 / 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 Cherlys alive today are over 57; half the Chelseys are over 33. 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 Chelsey Cherly
France 1005

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: Chelsey and Cherly.