Less
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Less has been given to 281 babies in the U.S. since 1881. 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 1923, with 14 recorded.
Babies named Less, 1957
1 in 600,000
Less 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Less?
Less had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1957, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1957
- 1 in 600,000
- 7 of 4,201,368 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 308,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1957
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 416,025 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Less sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1957 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 416,025 children born in 1957 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Less. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Lesss were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Less was born before 1919 — so the typical Less is around 106 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1910s
- 26.7% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 22.1%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 19
- People you could plausibly meet
1910s — 26.7% of all recorded uses (75).
Is Less 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 1923 (14)
- Years since peak
- 102
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 15.9% average annual change
Spellings of Less
Less is not the most common spelling — Jesse is, with 19.5% against Less's 0.01%.
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.
Less by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Less
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Less
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.