Loy vs Loyal

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Loy Loyal

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 143 years in which either name was published, Loy for 90 years and Loyal for 53 years. The lead changed hands 33 times.

• 1884–1889 Loy ahead
• 1890–1892 Loyal ahead
• 1893–1897 Loy ahead
• 1912–1914 Loyal ahead
• 1915–1922 Loy ahead, apart from one short spell
• 1923–1925 Loyal ahead
• 1926–1981 Loy ahead
• 1982–1985 Loyal ahead
• 1991–1993 Loy ahead
• 1999–2025 Loyal ahead

23 shorter spells of a year or two are folded into the spans above rather than listed separately.

Side by side

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 Loys alive today are over 69; half the Loyals are over 5. That is 64 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

• Loy Arkansas (17.8×), Oklahoma (9.4×), Georgia (4.7×)
• Loyal Oklahoma (2.9×), Georgia (2.7×), Kansas (2.3×)

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

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