Oley
Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Oley has been given to 378 babies in the U.S. since 1883. 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 1922, with 15 recorded.
Babies named Oley, 1964
1 in 555,000
Oley 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Oley?
Oley had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1964, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1964
- 1 in 555,000
- 7 of 3,887,460 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 285,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 1964
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 384,941 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Oley sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1964 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 384,941 children born in 1964 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Oley. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Oleys were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Oley was born before 1927 — so the typical Oley is around 98 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1920s
- 27.9% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 29.2%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 56
- People you could plausibly meet
1920s — 27.9% of all recorded uses (104).
Is Oley 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 1922 (15)
- Years since peak
- 103
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 20.3% average annual change
Spellings of Oley
Oley is not the most common spelling — Alex is, with 13.7% against Oley's 0.02%.
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 Oley is used
Across 1910–2025, Oley was most concentrated in West Virginia — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 72,403 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 1West Virginia1 in 100,000
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. Oley has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Oley by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Oley
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Oley
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.