Humanverse

Leolia vs Leonard

American parents have registered 295,746 Leonards since 1880, against 93 Leolias. Leonard is still ahead, with 438 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Leolia against Leonard, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Leolia Leonard

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

Leonard 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 Leolia had 8 and Leonard had 498.

Side by side

  Leolia Leonard
Total US births 93295,746
Most in one year 105,675
Babies in 2025 under 5438
Estimated living today 2119,000
Median age today 9764
Peak year 19211921
Best rank 3,164th girls39th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked637th
First recorded 19061880
Girls / boys 93 / 01,412 / 294,334

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 Leonards are over 64. That is 33 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 Leolia Leonard
France 3018,825

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: Leolia and Leonard.