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
Census
Baley in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 533 people with the first name Baley, which placed it at #19,699 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
#19,699
National first-name rank
People counted
533
533 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
82.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Baley
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Baley is White at 82.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.6%) and Black (4.9%). 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 Baley 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 Baley at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White82.0% · 437
- Hispanic or Latino5.6% · 30
- Black or African American4.9% · 26
- Two or more races3.6% · 19
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.4% · 13
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 8
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)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Baley on both sides of the split. Of the 535 people counted with this name, 163 were male (30.5%) and 372 were female (69.5%).
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.
How common was Baley in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 533 people with the name Baley, or 0.18 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #19,699 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 Baley 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 Baley?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Baley on both sides of the split. Of the 535 people counted with this name, 163 were male (30.5%) and 372 were female (69.5%). 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 Baley?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Baley is White at 82.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (5.6%) and Black (4.9%). 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 Baley most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Baley in the 2020 Census, accounting for 82.0% (437 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 Baley in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Baley still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Baley 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 Baley 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 common is the name Baley?
Our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers how many Americans are named Baley at a glance, with the living-bearer count up front.