Humanverse

Mael vs Maelee

American parents have registered 1,587 Maelees since 1880, against 1,353 Maels. But in 2025 it was Mael that was commoner, 195 babies to 79.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mael against Maelee, 1880 to 2025 0 60 120 180 240 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mael Maelee

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 34 years in which either name was published, Maelee for 28 years and Mael for 6 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Mael Maelee
Total US births 1,3531,587
Most in one year 22693
Babies in 2025 19579
Estimated living today 1,3001,600
Median age today 310
Peak year 20232024
Best rank 971st boys2,067th girls
Rank in 2025 1,097th2,298th
First recorded 20021970
Girls / boys 0 / 1,3531,587 / 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 Maelees alive today are over 10; half the Maels are over 3. That is 7 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.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Mael Maelee
France 81,205 Maƫl35

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: Mael and Maelee.