Humanverse

Leidy vs Leigh

American parents have registered 45,349 Leighs since 1880, against 871 Leidys. Leigh is still ahead, with 31 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Leidy against Leigh, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Leidy Leigh

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

Leigh has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1882 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2006, when Leidy had 50 and Leigh had 63.

Side by side

  Leidy Leigh
Total US births 87145,349
Most in one year 501,641
Babies in 2025 2131
Estimated living today 86040,000
Median age today 1652
Peak year 20061969
Best rank 3,264th girls201st girls
Rank in 2025 5,722nd4,460th
First recorded 19741882
Girls / boys 871 / 040,242 / 5,107

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 Leighs alive today are over 52; half the Leidys are over 16. That is 36 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: Leidy and Leigh.