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Keeley vs Keelyn

American parents have registered 6,741 Keeleys since 1880, against 1,162 Keelyns. Keeley is still ahead, with 135 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Keeley against Keelyn, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Keeley Keelyn

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

Keeley has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1957 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2020, when Keeley had 43 and Keelyn had 35.

Side by side

  Keeley Keelyn
Total US births 6,7411,162
Most in one year 25384
Babies in 2025 1358
Estimated living today 6,6001,100
Median age today 2216
Peak year 20072010
Best rank 1,041st girls2,589th girls
Rank in 2025 1,561st10,917th
First recorded 19571973
Girls / boys 6,692 / 49865 / 297

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 Keeleys alive today are over 22; half the Keelyns are over 16. That is 6 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 Keeley Keelyn
Ireland 18818

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: Keeley and Keelyn.