Humanverse

Liel vs Liev

American parents have registered 563 Liels since 1880, against 521 Lievs. Liel is still ahead, with 36 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Liel against Liev, 1880 to 2025 0 15 30 45 60 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Liel Liev

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 24 years in which either name was published, Liel for 15 years and Liev for 9 years. The lead changed hands 4 times.

Side by side

  Liel Liev
Total US births 563521
Most in one year 4458
Babies in 2025 3620
Estimated living today 560520
Median age today 89
Peak year 20222016
Best rank 4,108th girls2,278th boys
Rank in 2025 4,878th4,857th
First recorded 20022007
Girls / boys 452 / 1110 / 521

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.

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 Liev
England and Wales 36

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 Liev.