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Ryley vs Ryli

American parents have registered 7,197 Ryleys since 1880, against 731 Rylis. Ryley is still ahead, with 67 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Ryley against Ryli, 1880 to 2025 0 100 200 300 400 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Ryley Ryli

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

Ryley has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1981 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2024, when Ryley had 54 and Ryli had 21.

Side by side

  Ryley Ryli
Total US births 7,197731
Most in one year 37243
Babies in 2025 6711
Estimated living today 7,100730
Median age today 1915
Peak year 20072009
Best rank 1,021st boys3,677th girls
Rank in 2025 3,848th8,860th
First recorded 19811991
Girls / boys 3,341 / 3,856731 / 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 Ryleys alive today are over 19; half the Rylis are over 15. That is 4 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 Ryley Ryli
England and Wales 2,1493

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: Ryley and Ryli.