Humanverse

Orlaith vs Orlo

American parents have registered 920 Orlos since 1880, against 49 Orlaiths. But in 2025 it was Orlaith that was commoner, 6 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Orlaith against Orlo, 1880 to 2025 0 13 25 38 50 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Orlaith Orlo

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 68 years in which either name was published, Orlo for 61 years and Orlaith for 7 years. The lead changed hands 7 times.

Side by side

  Orlaith Orlo
Total US births 49920
Most in one year 1041
Babies in 2025 6under 5
Estimated living today 50110
Median age today 278
Peak year 20241919
Best rank 9,556th girls1,063rd boys
Rank in 2025 13,208thunranked
First recorded 20061881
Girls / boys 49 / 00 / 920

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 Orlos alive today are over 78; half the Orlaiths are over 2. That is 76 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 Orlaith Orlo
England and Wales 1,42217

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: Orlaith and Orlo.