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Leo vs Leolia

American parents have registered 262,124 Leos since 1880, against 93 Leolias. Leo is still ahead, with 8,196 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Leo against Leolia, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Leo Leolia

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

Leo has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1906, when Leo had 519 and Leolia had 8.

Side by side

  Leo Leolia
Total US births 262,12493
Most in one year 8,32510
Babies in 2025 8,196under 5
Estimated living today 147,0002
Median age today 1097
Peak year 20221921
Best rank 22nd boys3,164th girls
Rank in 2025 19thunranked
First recorded 18801906
Girls / boys 2,136 / 259,98893 / 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 Leolias alive today are over 97; half the Leos are over 10. That is 87 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 Leo Leolia
France 135,505 Léo30

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: Leo and Leolia.