Curley
About 3,124 American babies have been named Curley since 1881, most of them around 1944. It is given to both boys and girls. It has not appeared in the national data since 2003. About 1,200 Curleys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 69.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Curley boys named Curley
Girls and boys called Curley
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Both, throughout, without either side ever taking it over: 534 girls and 2,590 boys in all, and in 1966 the split was 0 to 32.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 53 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 3,124
- Estimated living today
- 1,200
- Median age today
- 69
- Peak year
- 1944
- Best rank
- 754th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1881
- Girls / boys
- 534 / 2,590
How old the living Curleys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 3,124 babies given the name since 1881, about 1,200 are alive — 39 in every hundred. Roughly 0 of them are children and 750 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1956 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Notable Curleys
- Curley Russell (1917–1986)American jazz musician
- Curley Weaver (1906–1962)American blues musician
People named Curley with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Curley is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Curley is most concentrated in Louisiana (31.6×), Mississippi (8.9×), Alabama (2.6×), North Carolina (2.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1944
The most popular boys’ names the year Curley peaked:
Related names
Curley against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.