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Hadley vs Hadrian

American parents have registered 48,691 Hadleys since 1880, against 829 Hadrians. Hadley is still ahead, with 2,266 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Hadley against Hadrian, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Hadley Hadrian

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

Hadley has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1906 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1973, when Hadley had 25 and Hadrian had 8.

Side by side

  Hadley Hadrian
Total US births 48,691829
Most in one year 3,06050
Babies in 2025 2,26650
Estimated living today 48,000820
Median age today 912
Peak year 20142025
Best rank 100th girls2,604th boys
Rank in 2025 121st2,604th
First recorded 19061970
Girls / boys 46,595 / 2,0960 / 829

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 Hadrians alive today are over 12; half the Hadleys are over 9. That is 3 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 Hadley Hadrian
England and Wales 1,79365
France 5120

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: Hadley and Hadrian.