Aylee
Of Arabic origin meaning "ascended, high, or sublime".
Name Census estimates that about 496 living Americans carry the first name Aylee. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Aylee today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Aylee births was 2021 (52 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Aylee. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Aylee with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
496
~ 1 in 691,037 Americans
Peak year
2021
52 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,802
Tracked since 2000
Census
Aylee in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 384 people with the first name Aylee, which placed it at #24,893 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#24,893
National first-name rank
People counted
384
384 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
53.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Aylee
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aylee is White at 53.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (29.2%) and Two or More Races (6.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Aylee described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Aylee at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White53.9% · 207
- Hispanic or Latino29.2% · 112
- Two or more races6.3% · 24
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.0% · 23
- Black or African American3.1% · 12
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.6% · 6
Popularity
Aylee: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Aylee from the 2000s through to the 2020s, spanning 3 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 267 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Aylee remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Aylee by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Aylee during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Aylees live
Origin
Meaning and history of Aylee
The name Aylee is believed to have its origins in the Arabic language, where it is a variant spelling of the name Ayla or Alia. The name likely emerged sometime during the medieval period in the Middle East and North Africa regions.
In Arabic, the name Ayla or Alia is derived from the root word 'ali', which means 'lofty' or 'sublime'. This suggests that the name Aylee may have been given to girls with the hope that they would grow to embody these noble qualities.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Aylee can be found in the writings of the renowned Arab poet and philosopher Al-Mutanabbi, who lived from 915 to 965 CE. He mentioned a woman named Aylee in one of his poems, though little is known about her beyond her name.
The first notable historical figure with the name Aylee was Aylee bint Ahmad Al-Jazzar, a 12th-century Arab physician and scholar who made significant contributions to the field of medicine. She was born in Mosul, Iraq, and lived from 1153 to 1228 CE.
In the 15th century, there was a famous Ottoman Turkish poet named Aylee Shemseddin, who was born in 1412 and died in 1482. She was renowned for her ghazals, a type of poetic form consisting of rhyming couplets, and her works were widely read and admired during her lifetime.
Another notable bearer of the name Aylee was Aylee Al-Nasiri, an 18th-century Egyptian calligrapher and artist who excelled in the art of Arabic calligraphy. She was born in Cairo in 1720 and lived until 1798.
In more recent times, one of the most famous individuals with the name Aylee was Aylee Shahenaz Husain, an Indian freedom fighter and politician who played a significant role in the struggle for India's independence from British rule. She was born in 1907 and died in 1986.
While the name Aylee has its roots in the Arabic language and culture, it has also been adopted and used in various other regions and cultures over the centuries, though its specific meaning and origins may have evolved or been reinterpreted in different contexts.
People
Aylee + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Aylee as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with A
Other first names starting with A with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Aylee: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Aylee?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 496 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Aylee going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 691,037 US residents.
Is Aylee a common name?
We classify Aylee as "Very Rare". It ranks above 84.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 500 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Aylee most popular?
The single biggest year for Aylee was 2021, when 52 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Aylee is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Aylee in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 384 people with the name Aylee, or 0.13 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #24,893 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Aylee in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Aylee?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Aylee leans strongly female. 367 people counted with this name were female (98.9%), compared with 4 male bearers (1.1%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Aylee?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Aylee is White at 53.9%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (29.2%) and Two or More Races (6.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Aylee most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Aylee in the 2020 Census, accounting for 53.9% (207 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Aylee in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Aylee a female name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Aylee in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Aylee still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Aylee in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Aylee can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are called Aylee?
For a faster, more casual read, check HowManyOfMe.org — our sister site built around that single question.