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Eileen vs Eilleen

American parents have registered 190,020 Eileens since 1880, against 503 Eilleens. Eileen is still ahead, with 437 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Eileen against Eilleen, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Eileen Eilleen

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

Eileen has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1882 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2010, when Eileen had 321 and Eilleen had 10.

Side by side

  Eileen Eilleen
Total US births 190,020503
Most in one year 4,26716
Babies in 2025 437under 5
Estimated living today 105,000260
Median age today 6762
Peak year 19471916
Best rank 91st girls2,028th girls
Rank in 2025 654thunranked
First recorded 18821915
Girls / boys 189,614 / 406503 / 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 Eileens alive today are over 67; half the Eilleens are over 62. That is 5 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Eileen Eilleen
France 2,0405

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: Eileen and Eilleen.