Humanverse

Leigh vs Leiland

American parents have registered 45,349 Leighs since 1880, against 632 Leilands. Leigh is still ahead, with 31 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Leigh Leiland

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 131 years in which either name was published, Leigh for 129 years and Leiland for 2 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Leigh Leiland
Total US births 45,349632
Most in one year 1,64157
Babies in 2025 3114
Estimated living today 40,000630
Median age today 5212
Peak year 19692012
Best rank 201st girls2,270th boys
Rank in 2025 4,460th6,143rd
First recorded 18822004
Girls / boys 40,242 / 5,1070 / 632

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 Leilands are over 12. That is 40 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 Leigh Leiland
England and Wales 1,24847

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: Leigh and Leiland.