Humanverse

Raelyn vs Raewyn

American parents have registered 15,864 Raelyns since 1880, against 24 Raewyns. Raelyn is still ahead, with 598 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Raelyn against Raewyn, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Raelyn Raewyn

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

Raelyn has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1949 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1981, when Raelyn had 25 and Raewyn had 5.

Side by side

  Raelyn Raewyn
Total US births 15,86424
Most in one year 1,0348
Babies in 2025 598under 5
Estimated living today 16,00020
Median age today 912
Peak year 20162021
Best rank 317th girls11,146th girls
Rank in 2025 502ndunranked
First recorded 19491981
Girls / boys 15,768 / 9624 / 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 Raewyns alive today are over 12; half the Raelyns are over 9. That is 3 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 Raelyn Raewyn
England and Wales 353

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: Raelyn and Raewyn.