Humanverse

Joy vs Joyelle

American parents have registered 143,324 Joys since 1880, against 390 Joyelles. Joy is still ahead, with 774 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Joy Joyelle

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

Joy has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1883 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1975, when Joy had 2,316 and Joyelle had 88.

Side by side

  Joy Joyelle
Total US births 143,324390
Most in one year 2,94588
Babies in 2025 7745
Estimated living today 107,000380
Median age today 5542
Peak year 19571975
Best rank 143rd girls1,269th girls
Rank in 2025 419th14,942nd
First recorded 18831975
Girls / boys 140,694 / 2,630390 / 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 Joys alive today are over 55; half the Joyelles are over 42. That is 13 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: Joy and Joyelle.