Humanverse

Layne

Layne is a boy's name that peaked in 2021, when it was the 636th most popular in the United States. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 662nd. About 19,000 Laynes are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 17.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 125 250 375 500 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Layne boys named Layne

Girls and boys called Layne

Share of the name given to girls, 1880 to 2025 0% 25% 50% 75% 100% 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

years more girls than boys years more boys than girls

Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 5,679 girls and 14,355 boys in all, and in 2025 the split was 156 to 414.

The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 84 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.

By the numbers

Total US births
20,034
Estimated living today
19,000
Median age today
17
Peak year
2021
Best rank
636th
Rank in 2025
662nd
First recorded
1918
Girls / boys
5,679 / 14,355

How old the living Laynes are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 20,034 babies given the name since 1918, about 19,000 are alive — 94 in every hundred. Roughly 9,800 of them are children and 1,100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2008 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin a surname

Topographic surname from lane.

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Laynes

People named Layne with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Layne is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Layne is most concentrated in Utah (4.8×), Idaho (4.7×), Missouri (1.9×), Washington (1.9×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 2021

The most popular boys’ names the year Layne peaked:

All the names of 2021

Layne elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
England and Wales boys Layne 197 1,798th
England and Wales girls Layne 36 2,201st
France boys Layne 25 5,766th
Scotland boys Layne 13 599th
France girls Layne 10 7,173rd
Scotland girls Layne 3 790th

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Related names

Layne against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Layne with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.