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Gaylene

Girls' name

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Gaylene has been given to 2,570 babies in the U.S. since 1931. 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 1956, with 118 recorded.

Babies named Gaylene, 1995

1 in 732,000

Gaylene over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Gaylene: meaning, origin, and history

Meaning and linguistic origin unconfirmed

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Gaylene means

Gaylene is a given name.

The naming story behind Gaylene

Wikidata records Gaylene as a female given name. The entity identifier is Q95977264, and the classification was checked on 2026-10-20. The spelling matches a source label or alias exactly, without removing accents or linking it to a name merely because the letters look similar.

A database classification is different from an etymological explanation, so those questions remain open in the short meaning.

A modern root explanation needs an additional naming or linguistic reference.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 2,570 girls were recorded with the name Gaylene between 1931 and 1995. Its highest annual count was 118 in 1956; its best national rank was #929 in 1956.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Gaylene?

Gaylene had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1995, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 1995
1 in 732,000
5 of 3,660,254 births
Among girls only
1 in 352,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 1995
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
507,420 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Gaylene sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 1995 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 507,420 children born in 1995 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Gaylene. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Gaylenes were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Gaylene was born before 1956 — so the typical Gaylene is around 69 today.

Median birth year
1956
About 69 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
34.9% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
8.2%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
1,867
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 34.9% of all recorded uses (896).

Is Gaylene 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 1956 (118)
Years since peak
69
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Shifting
19.7% average annual change
Best rank ever
#929
1956

Spellings of Gaylene

Gaylene is not the most common spelling — Darlene is, with 23.1% against Gaylene's 0.29%.

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 Gaylene is used

Across 1910–2025, Gaylene was most concentrated in Utah — about 1 in 7,143 girls, against 1 in 77,913 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

014 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Utah1 in 7,143
  2. 2Nebraska1 in 14,286
  3. 3Idaho1 in 25,000
  4. 4Kansas1 in 25,000
  5. 5California1 in 50,000
  6. 6Colorado1 in 50,000
  7. 7Iowa1 in 100,000
  8. 8Minnesota1 in 100,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Gaylene has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Gaylene around the world

Where Gaylene ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • South Australia
    1944–1984
    #661
    in 1984

Popularity data from Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Notable people named Gaylene

People whose public names include Gaylene, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Gaylene by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#929
1956
Peak year
1956
118 that year
First recorded
1931
Last recorded
1995
All-time count
2,570
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Gaylene

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

RaeleneJaileneJasleneAbileneRayleneGaynellJazleneKayleneAdeleneMayleneJoeleneHarleneGayatriAileneAdileneEileneSereneCeleneEveleneGaynelleAdaleneJeaneneMerleneAdriene

Names with a curve like Gaylene

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Gaylene, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

DremaRegeniaPameliaMerrieGwendaKaranSharylFranSheilahCheryllPamellaSuzann

Sibling names for Gaylene

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Gaylene

Top names of 1956, Gaylene's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1956Girls' names starting with G