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Lelan vs Lelia

American parents have registered 15,645 Lelias since 1880, against 924 Lelans. Lelia is still ahead, with 17 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Lelan against Lelia, 1880 to 2025 0 80 160 240 320 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Lelan Lelia

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, Lelia for 143 years and Lelan for 3 years. The lead changed hands 6 times.

Side by side

  Lelan Lelia
Total US births 92415,645
Most in one year 42316
Babies in 2025 917
Estimated living today 6504,500
Median age today 1665
Peak year 20071919
Best rank 2,811th boys359th girls
Rank in 2025 8,243rd6,546th
First recorded 19121880
Girls / boys 0 / 92415,645 / 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 Lelias alive today are over 65; half the Lelans are over 16. That is 49 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 Lelan Lelia
England and Wales 6838

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: Lelan and Lelia.