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Grady vs Grayden

American parents have registered 53,215 Gradys since 1880, against 2,175 Graydens. Grady is still ahead, with 860 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Grady Grayden

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

Grady has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1887 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2001, when Grady had 254 and Grayden had 42.

Side by side

  Grady Grayden
Total US births 53,2152,175
Most in one year 1,203146
Babies in 2025 86048
Estimated living today 33,0002,100
Median age today 1813
Peak year 20082008
Best rank 286th boys1,205th boys
Rank in 2025 373rd2,676th
First recorded 18871918
Girls / boys 741 / 52,4740 / 2,175

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 Gradys alive today are over 18; half the Graydens are over 13. That is 5 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: Grady and Grayden.