Humanverse

Gaylene vs Gaylord

American parents have registered 6,091 Gaylords since 1880, against 2,570 Gaylenes. Neither name reached five babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Gaylene against Gaylord, 1880 to 2025 0 50 100 150 200 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Gaylene Gaylord

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 103 years in which either name was published, Gaylord for 81 years and Gaylene for 22 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Gaylene Gaylord
Total US births 2,5706,091
Most in one year 118168
Babies in 2025 under 5under 5
Estimated living today 1,9001,800
Median age today 6773
Peak year 19561931
Best rank 929th girls438th boys
Rank in 2025 unrankedunranked
First recorded 19311882
Girls / boys 2,570 / 05 / 6,086

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 Gaylords alive today are over 73; half the Gaylenes are over 67. That is 6 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: Gaylene and Gaylord.