Boy Names That Start With L
Boys' names beginning with L, ranked by how many babies actually got them — not by editorial preference — plus which ones are climbing and how the letter itself has moved.
- Share of boys, 2025
- 7.5%
- vs 3.0% in 2000
- Names in use
- 500
- 1,985 recorded since 1880
- Letter peaked
- 2021
- at 7.7% of names
- Rank among 26 letters
- #3
- by 2025 share
How L has fared since 1880
Share of all listed U.S. births given a name starting with L, year by year. Plotted as a share rather than a count — raw counts track how many babies were born, so every letter would appear to peak in 1957.
| Save name | Name & meaning | History 1926–2025, yearly counts; individually scaled | Babies 2025 · rank | 5-year rank movement | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 578#520 | Up 43 rank positions in five years | 1952 | |||
| 1,391#249 | Up 11 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 5,576#53 | Down 37 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 20,818#1 | Steady | 2024 | |||
| 10,219#10 | Down 2 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 6,948#33 | Down 2 rank positions in five years | 2014 | |||
| 438#637 | Down 2 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 2,475#144 | Down 7 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 8,173#19 | Up 17 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 366#727 | Up 42 rank positions in five years | 1951 | |||
| 9,642#12 | Up 6 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 269#888 | Up 35 rank positions in five years | 1924 | |||
| 2,840#127 | Down 58 rank positions in five years | 2010 | |||
| 2,583#138 | Up 58 rank positions in five years | 1924 | |||
| 736#433 | Up 64 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 279#862 | Down 97 rank positions in five years | 1970 | |||
| 4,703#69 | Down 29 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 3,789#91 | Down 5 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 3,065#117 | Up 35 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 8,759#14 | Up 53 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 612#494 | Down 24 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 1,383#250 | Up 6 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 1,161#288 | Down 70 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 419#659 | Up 3 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 481#596 | Up 171 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 3,873#85 | Up 76 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 942#350 | Down 5 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 1,862#193 | Down 66 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 830#381 | Down 24 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 1,118#305 | Up 108 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 670#462 | Up 174 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 414#662 | Up 1 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 1,160#289 | Up 3 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 377#714 | Down 93 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 785#406 | Up 240 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 591#510 | Down 53 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 257#917 | Down 3 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 265#899 | Up 192 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 308#808 | Down 117 rank positions in five years | 2016 | |||
| 757#425 | Up 31 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 227#1,000 | Down 306 rank positions in five years | 2016 | |||
| 468#606 | Up 99 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 233#983 | Up 72 rank positions in five years | 2022 | |||
| 229#996 | Down 43 rank positions in five years | 2012 | |||
| 541#554 | Up 77 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 433#644 | Up 85 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 752#428 | Up 365 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 266#896 | Up 311 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 227#1,001 | Up 108 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 244#957 | Down 195 rank positions in five years | 2021 |
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L names climbing fastest
Biggest L names of all time
By total applications since 1880 — a different list from the one above, because it counts every generation, not just this one.
Every other letter
Sources & methodology
Rankings and counts come from official birth card-application data, 1880–2025. Counts are card applications rather than births, and any name given to fewer than 5 babies of one sex in a year is not published — so “—” means genuinely uncommon, never invalid. The “climbing fastest” row ranks by five-year rank movement as a ratio, and a name must be inside the top 1,000 with at least 200 applications in 2025 to qualify — a looser gate than the site-wide trending list uses, because inside a single letter the stricter one leaves some letters empty. Letter shares are measured over listed names only, and the 25-year comparison is a generation rather than five years because letter fashion moves far more slowly than any one name.