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Liel vs Liesel

American parents have registered 1,241 Liesels since 1880, against 563 Liels. But in 2025 it was Liel that was commoner, 36 babies to 28.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Liel against Liesel, 1880 to 2025 0 20 40 60 80 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Liel Liesel

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 63 years in which either name was published, Liesel for 57 years and Liel for 6 years. The lead changed hands 5 times.

Side by side

  Liel Liesel
Total US births 5631,241
Most in one year 4463
Babies in 2025 3628
Estimated living today 5601,200
Median age today 816
Peak year 20222015
Best rank 4,108th girls2,773rd girls
Rank in 2025 4,878th4,758th
First recorded 20021954
Girls / boys 452 / 1111,241 / 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 Liesels alive today are over 16; half the Liels are over 8. That is 8 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 Liel Liesel
France 22030
England and Wales 327

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: Liel and Liesel.