Humanverse

Clea vs Cleveland

American parents have registered 22,032 Clevelands since 1880, against 825 Cleas. But in 2025 it was Clea that was commoner, 20 babies to 11.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Clea against Cleveland, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Clea Cleveland

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 146 years in which either name was published, Cleveland for 142 years and Clea for 4 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Clea Cleveland
Total US births 82522,032
Most in one year 26368
Babies in 2025 2011
Estimated living today 6709,400
Median age today 2360
Peak year 20221947
Best rank 5,028th girls360th boys
Rank in 2025 5,917th7,194th
First recorded 19141880
Girls / boys 815 / 1087 / 21,945

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 Clevelands alive today are over 60; half the Cleas are over 23. That is 37 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 Clea Cleveland
England and Wales 1473

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: Clea and Cleveland.