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Bradley vs Brayden

American parents have registered 314,957 Bradleys since 1880, against 137,606 Braydens. But in 2025 it was Brayden that was commoner, 1,545 babies to 830.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Bradley against Brayden, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Bradley Brayden

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 141 years in which either name was published, Bradley for 117 years and Brayden for 24 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Bradley Brayden
Total US births 314,957137,606
Most in one year 7,2629,168
Babies in 2025 8301,545
Estimated living today 279,000136,000
Median age today 4214
Peak year 19802010
Best rank 51st boys40th boys
Rank in 2025 403rd229th
First recorded 18801970
Girls / boys 1,949 / 313,0081,058 / 136,548

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Bradleys alive today are over 42; half the Braydens are over 14. That is 28 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Bradley Brayden
England and Wales 30,3491,822
New Zealand 3,910317
France 2,600245
Scotland 1,597230
Ireland 715125
Northern Ireland 56541
Belgium 5036

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Bradley and Brayden.