Baby Names Ending In -Ley

Girls' and boys' names ending in -ley, ranked by how many babies actually got them, plus how the ending itself has risen or fallen over the last century.

Girls ending in -ley, 2025
2.5%
vs 3.0% in 2000
Girls' -ley names in use
239
547 recorded since 1880
Girls' peak
1935
at 4.1% of names
Boys ending in -ley, 2025
0.94%
vs 0.66% in 2000
Boys' -ley names in use
92
287 recorded since 1880
Boys' peak
2014
at 1.1% of names

How -ley has fared since 1880

Share of all listed U.S. births given a name ending in -ley, year by year. Plotted as a share rather than a count — raw counts track how many babies were born, so every ending would appear to peak in 1957.

188019532025
GirlsBoys
Save nameName & meaning
History
1926–2025, yearly counts; individually scaled
Babies 2025 · rank5-year rank movementPeak year
1,829#164
Down 11 rank positions in five years
1987
133#1,586
Down 36 rank positions in five years
1935
794#403
Down 130 rank positions in five years
1980
278#863
Down 128 rank positions in five years
1954
5,578#52
Up 46 rank positions in five years
2025
2,556#104
Down 23 rank positions in five years
2003
314#861
Down 345 rank positions in five years
2000
4,441#48
Down 15 rank positions in five years
2016
1,446#209
Down 37 rank positions in five years
1998
1,666#208
Up 49 rank positions in five years
2006
3,508#67
Down 18 rank positions in five years
2015
1,649#215
Down 74 rank positions in five years
2012
179#1,251
Down 577 rank positions in five years
1993
2,671#93
Down 34 rank positions in five years
2017
2,254#121
Down 10 rank positions in five years
2014
199#1,083
Down 302 rank positions in five years
1994
950#322
Down 111 rank positions in five years
2008
1,362#225
Down 12 rank positions in five years
2014
606#499
Down 266 rank positions in five years
2014
748#418
Down 132 rank positions in five years
2017
153#1,420
Down 572 rank positions in five years
2004
87#1,827
Down 26 rank positions in five years
1920
753#415
Down 214 rank positions in five years
2017
138#1,358
Up 330 rank positions in five years
1997
621#483
Down 128 rank positions in five years
2014
409#692
Down 258 rank positions in five years
2012
1,017#333
Down 28 rank positions in five years
2021
165#1,226
Down 61 rank positions in five years
1921
27#3,956
Down 303 rank positions in five years
1980
900#338
Up 405 rank positions in five years
2008
1,933#156
Up 128 rank positions in five years
2025
481#608
Down 246 rank positions in five years
2017
393#714
Down 159 rank positions in five years
2014
170#1,309
Down 356 rank positions in five years
2011
688#454
Down 34 rank positions in five years
2022
356#760
Down 223 rank positions in five years
2014
453#619
Up 128 rank positions in five years
2025
30#3,720
Down 1,518 rank positions in five years
1920
367#742
Down 288 rank positions in five years
2018
420#677
Up 269 rank positions in five years
1988
1,858#159
Up 735 rank positions in five years
2024
127#1,638
Down 350 rank positions in five years
2012
252#1,001
Down 418 rank positions in five years
2016
196#1,096
Down 468 rank positions in five years
2016
135#1,567
Up 1,955 rank positions in five years
2007
339#805
Down 266 rank positions in five years
2021
340#757
Down 146 rank positions in five years
2021
301#888
Down 66 rank positions in five years
2021
643#479
Down 106 rank positions in five years
2020
131#1,397
Down 454 rank positions in five years
2008
88#1,819
Down 252 rank positions in five years
2009
357#736
Down 198 rank positions in five years
2020
213#1,112
Down 391 rank positions in five years
2020
75#2,009
Down 914 rank positions in five years
2014
53#2,521
Up 35 rank positions in five years
2011
28#3,929
Down 1,182 rank positions in five years
2007
322#845
Down 258 rank positions in five years
2020
92#1,755
Up 315 rank positions in five years
2025
146#1,468
Up 278 rank positions in five years
2011
196#1,183
Up 137 rank positions in five years
2017
101#1,926
Up 50 rank positions in five years
2021
268#963
Down 123 rank positions in five years
2021
194#1,190
Down 433 rank positions in five years
2020
102#1,904
Down 695 rank positions in five years
2017
243#1,032
Up 265 rank positions in five years
2025
141#1,513
Down 222 rank positions in five years
2018
181#1,246
Down 175 rank positions in five years
2019
148#1,453
Up 477 rank positions in five years
2024
33#3,452
Down 902 rank positions in five years
2013
119#1,719
Down 668 rank positions in five years
2020
26#4,075
Up 681 rank positions in five years
1918
87#1,834
Up 256 rank positions in five years
2024
65#2,194
Down 21 rank positions in five years
2015
71#2,089
Down 199 rank positions in five years
2021
95#2,013
Down 110 rank positions in five years
2018
170#1,314
Up 818 rank positions in five years
2024
18#5,312
Down 823 rank positions in five years
2010
65#2,184
Up 959 rank positions in five years
2024
72#2,065
Up 13 rank positions in five years
2024
156#1,266
Up 867 rank positions in five years
2025
207#1,131
Up 4,932 rank positions in five years
2025
88#1,823
Up 1,309 rank positions in five years
2025
14#6,348
Up 5,291 rank positions in five years
1918
51#2,572
Up 1,567 rank positions in five years
2024
54#2,485
Up 1,440 rank positions in five years
2025
46#2,793
Up 49 rank positions in five years
2017
14#6,361
Down 453 rank positions in five years
2014
14#6,388
Down 3,058 rank positions in five years
2016
110#1,832
Up 2,916 rank positions in five years
2025
16#5,727
Down 151 rank positions in five years
2024
26#4,113
Up 554 rank positions in five years
2022
14#6,247
Down 439 rank positions in five years
2016
17#5,589
new
2023
110#1,822
Up 7,364 rank positions in five years
2025
14#6,178
Down 2,442 rank positions in five years
2017
14#6,182
Down 1,307 rank positions in five years
2018
16#5,793
Up 5,918 rank positions in five years
2025
18#5,381
Up 5,157 rank positions in five years
2025
14#6,177
new
2025
19#5,078
new
2025

Page 1 of 1

Biggest -ley names of all time

By total applications since 1880 — a different list from the one above, because it counts every generation, not just this one.

Browse every girls’ name ending in -ley

-ley names climbing fastest

Biggest -ley names of all time

By total applications since 1880 — a different list from the one above, because it counts every generation, not just this one.

Browse every boys’ name ending in -ley

Every other ending

Sources & methodology

Rankings and counts come from official birth card-application data, 1880–2025. Counts are card applications rather than births, and any name given to fewer than 5 babies of one sex in a year is not published — so “—” means genuinely uncommon, never invalid. The “climbing fastest” row ranks by five-year rank movement as a ratio, and a name must be inside the top 1,000 with at least 200 applications in 2025 to qualify — a looser gate than the site-wide trending list uses, because inside a single ending the stricter one leaves some endings empty. Names ending in -ley also count toward names ending in Y — a suffix is a slice of its last letter, not a separate universe. Ending shares are measured over listed names only, and the 25-year comparison is a generation rather than five years because ending fashion moves far more slowly than any one name.