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Silas vs Silje

American parents have registered 75,649 Silases since 1880, against 64 Siljes. Silas is still ahead, with 4,646 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Silas against Silje, 1880 to 2025 0 1.3k 2.5k 3.8k 5k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Silas Silje

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

Silas has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2003, when Silas had 562 and Silje had 5.

Side by side

  Silas Silje
Total US births 75,64964
Most in one year 4,64613
Babies in 2025 4,646under 5
Estimated living today 67,00060
Median age today 810
Peak year 20252014
Best rank 71st boys8,485th girls
Rank in 2025 71stunranked
First recorded 18802002
Girls / boys 184 / 75,46564 / 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 Siljes alive today are over 10; half the Silases are over 8. That is 2 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 Silas Silje
Norway 68715,852
Denmark 2,7581,554
France 1,6605

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: Silas and Silje.