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Leighton vs Leire

American parents have registered 21,823 Leightons since 1880, against 87 Leires. Leighton is still ahead, with 1,099 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Leighton against Leire, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Leighton Leire

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

Leighton has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1893 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2018, when Leighton had 981 and Leire had 15.

Side by side

  Leighton Leire
Total US births 21,82387
Most in one year 1,14415
Babies in 2025 1,09911
Estimated living today 20,00090
Median age today 96
Peak year 20252018
Best rank 342nd girls7,409th girls
Rank in 2025 342nd8,860th
First recorded 18932012
Girls / boys 12,412 / 9,41187 / 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 Leightons alive today are over 9; half the Leires are over 6. That is 3 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 Leighton Leire
England and Wales 5,3403
France 5185

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: Leighton and Leire.