Name Awesome

Yale

Boys' name

Fertile upland

Yale has been given to 1,416 babies in the U.S. since 1908. 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 1929, with 29 recorded.

Babies named Yale, 2022

1 in 677,000

Yale over time, 1880–2025

Boys
010203018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Yale: meaning, origin, and history

Fertile upland

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Yale means

Yale means “fertile upland”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Yale is used in English (Rare).

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈjeɪl/ for Yale.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 1,416 boys were recorded with the name Yale between 1908 and 2022. Its highest annual count was 29 in 1929; its best national rank was #1,302 in 1916.

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 Yale?

Yale had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2022, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2022
1 in 677,000
5 of 3,385,755 births
Among boys only
1 in 349,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2022
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
469,366 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Yale sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2022 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 469,366 children born in 2022 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Yale. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Yales were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Yale was born before 1953 — so the typical Yale is around 72 today.

Median birth year
1953
About 72 years old
Biggest decade
1920s
15.3% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
11.2%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
772
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1920s — 15.3% of all recorded uses (217).

Is Yale 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 1929 (29)
Years since peak
96
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
41.0% average annual change
Best rank ever
#1,302
1916

Spellings of Yale

Yale is not the most common spelling — Kyle is, with 17.2% against Yale's 0.05%.

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 Yale is used

Across 1910–2025, Yale was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 100,000 boys, against 1 in 310,672 across all states with data. It was least common in California (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 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. Yale has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Yale around the world

Where Yale 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.

  • Canada
    2023–2023
    #3,103
    in 2023
  • South Australia
    1971–1977
    #455
    in 1977

Popularity data from Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Yale by the numbers

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

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#1,302
1916
Peak year
1929
29 that year
First recorded
1908
Last recorded
2022
All-time count
1,416
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Yale

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

HaleKaleCaleValeGaleRoyaleNealeKendaleMikaleNataleCordaleZaleJamaleYaliKhaleWaleAdewaleLadaleMichaleRondaleMakaleMckaleRandalePasquale

Sibling names for Yale

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 Yale

Top names of 1929, Yale's peak yearThe 1920s in fullOther names that peaked in 1916Boys' names starting with Y