Oakley
About 26,745 American babies have been named Oakley since 1884, most of them around 2025. It is given to both boys and girls. In 2025 it ranked 156th. About 25,000 Oakleys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 4.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Oakley boys named Oakley
Girls and boys called Oakley
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Oakley crossed from boys to girls in 2016, and has stayed there for 10 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 74% girls, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 59 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
- 26,745
- Estimated living today
- 25,000
- Median age today
- 4
- Peak year
- 2025
- Best rank
- 156th
- Rank in 2025
- 156th
- First recorded
- 1884
- Girls / boys
- 15,360 / 11,385
How old the living Oakleys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 26,745 babies given the name since 1884, about 25,000 are alive — 94 in every hundred. Roughly 24,000 of them are children and 210 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2021 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.
Where the name comes from
Origin a surname
From Old English Āclēa, from āc (“oak”) + lēah (“woodland clearing, glade”), thus a clearing in an oak forest; equivalent. Compare Ackley, Akeley and Oakleigh, which have the same origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Where Oakley is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Oakley is most concentrated in Utah (9.6×), Idaho (6.6×), South Dakota (3.2×), Wyoming (2.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2025
The most popular girls’ names the year Oakley peaked:
Oakley elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales boys | Oakley | 11,215 | 34th |
| England and Wales girls | Oakley | 424 | 586th |
| Scotland boys | Oakley | 302 | 87th |
| New Zealand boys | Oakley | 243 | 71st |
| Northern Ireland boys | Oakley | 61 | 126th |
| Scotland girls | Oakley | 52 | 260th |
| Ireland boys | Oakley | 36 | 343rd |
| Northern Ireland girls | Oakley | 10 | 337th |
| Ireland girls | Oakley | 3 | 885th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Related names
Oakley 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.