Humanverse

Wylene vs Wylie

American parents have registered 6,865 Wylies since 1880, against 980 Wylenes. Wylie is still ahead, with 240 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Wylene Wylie

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

Wylie has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1958, when Wylene had 21 and Wylie had 27.

Side by side

  Wylene Wylie
Total US births 9806,865
Most in one year 31240
Babies in 2025 under 5240
Estimated living today 4504,600
Median age today 7316
Peak year 19352025
Best rank 1,307th girls1,176th boys
Rank in 2025 unranked1,176th
First recorded 19141880
Girls / boys 980 / 0792 / 6,073

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 Wylenes alive today are over 73; half the Wylies are over 16. That is 57 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.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Wylene and Wylie.