Humanverse

Wren vs Wrenley

American parents have registered 15,902 Wrens since 1880, against 8,069 Wrenleys. But in 2025 it was Wrenley that was commoner, 1,869 babies to 1,529.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Wren against Wrenley, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Wren Wrenley

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 84 years in which either name was published, Wren for 82 years and Wrenley for 2 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Wren Wrenley
Total US births 15,9028,069
Most in one year 1,8302,005
Babies in 2025 1,5291,869
Estimated living today 16,0008,000
Median age today 42
Peak year 20222024
Best rank 184th girls148th girls
Rank in 2025 231st158th
First recorded 18882013
Girls / boys 13,641 / 2,2617,948 / 121

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 Wrens alive today are over 4; half the Wrenleys are over 2. That is 2 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 Wren Wrenley
England and Wales 3,71175

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: Wren and Wrenley.