Baley
Possible meanings include "hardy person" from Old English and "berry gatherer" from Old French.
Name Census estimates that about 426 living Americans carry the first name Baley. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 76.4% of registrations being female. The average person named Baley today is around 26 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Baley births was 1997 (42 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Baley. 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.
People living today
426
~ 1 in 804,588 Americans
Peak year
1997
42 babies that year
Average age
26
years old
2005 SSA rank
#11,654
Tracked since 1986
Gender
Gender distribution for Baley
Baley is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 436 total registrations, 103 (23.6%) were male and 333 (76.4%) were female.
Baley as a male name
- Ranked #11,654 in 2005
- 5 male births in 2005
- Peak: 1997 (21 births)
Baley as a female name
- Ranked #14,089 in 2019
- 6 female births in 2019
- Peak: 2002 (22 births)
Popularity
Baley: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Baley from the 1980s through to the 2010s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 202 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Baley 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 Baley during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Baleys live
Origin
Meaning and history of Baley
The name Baley is an English given name derived from the Old English word "bæle," which means "fire" or "blaze." It is believed to have originated in the Anglo-Saxon period, which lasted from the 5th to the 11th centuries in what is now England.
The name Baley was not particularly common in ancient times, and there are no known references to it in historical texts or religious scriptures from that period. However, there are a few notable individuals who bore this name throughout history.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Baley dates back to the 13th century. Sir Baley de Wodehulle was an English knight who fought in the Wars of Scottish Independence alongside King Edward I in the late 13th and early 14th centuries.
In the 16th century, Baley Craddock was a Welsh landowner and member of the gentry class. He lived in Montgomeryshire, Wales, and his name appears in several land records from that time.
During the 17th century, Baley Hollinshead was a notable English politician and Member of Parliament for Cheshire. He was born in 1620 and served in Parliament from 1661 to 1679.
In the 18th century, Baley Croft was an English lawyer and legal scholar. He was born in 1738 and is known for his influential work on the English legal system and its reforms.
In the 19th century, Baley Ormsby was a British explorer and adventurer. He was born in 1825 and is famous for his expeditions to the Arctic regions and his accounts of life in the far north.
While the name Baley has never been extremely popular, it has maintained a presence throughout history, primarily in England and Wales. Its origins in the Old English language and connection to the concept of fire or blazes have given it a distinctive and intriguing meaning.
People
Baley + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Baley as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with B
Other first names starting with B with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Baley: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Baley?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 426 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Baley 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 804,588 US residents.
Is Baley a common name?
We classify Baley as "Very Rare". It ranks above 83% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 436 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Baley most popular?
The single biggest year for Baley was 1997, when 42 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Baley is about 26 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Baley a female name?
Yes, 76.4% of people registered as Baley 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.
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.