Elray
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Elray has been given to 327 babies in the U.S. since 1917. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1940, with 15 recorded.
Babies named Elray, 1978
1 in 635,000
Elray over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Elray?
Elray had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1978, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1978
- 1 in 635,000
- 5 of 3,173,639 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 328,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1978
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 439,961 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Elray sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1978 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 439,961 children born in 1978 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Elray. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Elrays were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Elray was born before 1941 — so the typical Elray is around 84 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1940s
- 26.0% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 22.6%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 102
- People you could plausibly meet
1940s — 26.0% of all recorded uses (85).
Is Elray rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- New entry
- Not ranked then
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not ranked then
- Births vs 10 years ago
- —
- Not published both years
- Share of its own peak
- 0%
- Peak was 1940 (15)
- Years since peak
- 85
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 44.1% average annual change
Spellings of Elray
Elray is not the most common spelling — Ray is, with 36.7% against Elray's 0.06%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Elray is used
Across 1910–2025, Elray was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 443,464 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).
Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Elray has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Elray by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Elray
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Elray
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.