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Henderson vs Henley

American parents have registered 8,272 Henleys since 1880, against 4,293 Hendersons. Henley is still ahead, with 317 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Henderson against Henley, 1880 to 2025 0 200 400 600 800 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Henderson Henley

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 146 years in which either name was published, Henderson for 119 years and Henley for 27 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Henderson Henley
Total US births 4,2938,272
Most in one year 83699
Babies in 2025 50317
Estimated living today 1,9008,100
Median age today 358
Peak year 19182016
Best rank 684th boys511th girls
Rank in 2025 2,604th1,000th
First recorded 18801912
Girls / boys 0 / 4,2936,725 / 1,547

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 Hendersons alive today are over 35; half the Henleys are over 8. That is 27 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 Henderson Henley
England and Wales 641,718

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: Henderson and Henley.