Humanverse

Reiley vs Reilly

American parents have registered 10,088 Reillys since 1880, against 942 Reileys. Reilly is still ahead, with 108 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Reiley against Reilly, 1880 to 2025 0 150 300 450 600 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Reiley Reilly

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

Reilly has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1953 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2009, when Reiley had 56 and Reilly had 335.

Side by side

  Reiley Reilly
Total US births 94210,088
Most in one year 58543
Babies in 2025 under 5108
Estimated living today 9309,900
Median age today 2021
Peak year 19981998
Best rank 3,301st girls623rd girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,822nd
First recorded 19911953
Girls / boys 618 / 3245,528 / 4,560

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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Reiley Reilly
England and Wales 47765
Scotland 3156

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: Reiley and Reilly.