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Gaile vs Gaines

American parents have registered 1,717 Gaineses since 1880, against 903 Gailes. Gaines is still ahead, with 19 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Gaile against Gaines, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Gaile Gaines

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 117 years in which either name was published, Gaines for 92 years and Gaile for 25 years. The lead changed hands 10 times.

Side by side

  Gaile Gaines
Total US births 9031,717
Most in one year 4932
Babies in 2025 under 519
Estimated living today 550860
Median age today 7431
Peak year 19461915
Best rank 1,229th girls1,141st boys
Rank in 2025 unranked5,045th
First recorded 19091882
Girls / boys 898 / 50 / 1,717

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 Gailes alive today are over 74; half the Gaineses are over 31. That is 43 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: Gaile and Gaines.