Humanverse

Mildred vs Miley

American parents have registered 452,998 Mildreds since 1880, against 15,779 Mileys. But in 2025 it was Miley that was commoner, 900 babies to 98.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Mildred against Miley, 1880 to 2025 0 5k 10k 15k 20k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Mildred Miley

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 146 years in which either name was published, Mildred for 126 years and Miley for 20 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Mildred Miley
Total US births 452,99815,779
Most in one year 18,0992,652
Babies in 2025 98900
Estimated living today 64,00016,000
Median age today 7814
Peak year 19202008
Best rank 6th girls128th girls
Rank in 2025 1,962nd338th
First recorded 18801889
Girls / boys 451,415 / 1,58315,704 / 75

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 Mildreds alive today are over 78; half the Mileys are over 14. That is 64 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 Mildred Miley
England and Wales 714,492
France 350390
Ireland 32122

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: Mildred and Miley.