Humanverse

Paisley vs Paityn

American parents have registered 65,456 Paisleys since 1880, against 6,338 Paityns. Paisley is still ahead, with 3,513 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Paisley against Paityn, 1880 to 2025 0 1.5k 3k 4.5k 6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Paisley Paityn

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

Paisley has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1966 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2001, when Paisley had 100 and Paityn had 84.

Side by side

  Paisley Paityn
Total US births 65,4566,338
Most in one year 5,091466
Babies in 2025 3,513107
Estimated living today 65,0006,300
Median age today 812
Peak year 20152010
Best rank 45th girls630th girls
Rank in 2025 67th1,855th
First recorded 19661993
Girls / boys 65,369 / 876,309 / 29

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 Paityns alive today are over 12; half the Paisleys are over 8. That is 4 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 Paisley Paityn
England and Wales 3,69545
Scotland 14725

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: Paisley and Paityn.