Humanverse

Edel vs Edelyn

American parents have registered 556 Edels since 1880, against 505 Edelyns. But in 2025 it was Edelyn that was commoner, 44 babies to 13.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Edel against Edelyn, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Edel Edelyn

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 48 years in which either name was published, Edel for 31 years and Edelyn for 17 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Edel Edelyn
Total US births 556505
Most in one year 2644
Babies in 2025 1344
Estimated living today 520500
Median age today 189
Peak year 20052025
Best rank 4,062nd boys3,459th girls
Rank in 2025 6,446th3,459th
First recorded 19061990
Girls / boys 53 / 503505 / 0

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 Edels alive today are over 18; half the Edelyns are over 9. That is 9 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 Edel Edelyn
England and Wales 193

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: Edel and Edelyn.