Humanverse

Orland vs Orly

American parents have registered 2,086 Orlands since 1880, against 824 Orlys. But in 2025 it was Orly that was commoner, 29 babies to fewer than five.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Orland against Orly, 1880 to 2025 0 25 50 75 100 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Orland Orly

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 128 years in which either name was published, Orland for 83 years and Orly for 45 years. The lead changed hands 13 times.

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

Side by side

  Orland Orly
Total US births 2,086824
Most in one year 9033
Babies in 2025 under 529
Estimated living today 510810
Median age today 6515
Peak year 19222013
Best rank 686th boys4,336th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked4,661st
First recorded 18851964
Girls / boys 5 / 2,081824 / 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 Orlands alive today are over 65; half the Orlys are over 15. That is 50 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 Orland Orly
England and Wales 491
France 515

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: Orland and Orly.