Isley
An English name with uncertain origins, potentially from an old surname.
Name Census estimates that about 1,384 living Americans carry the first name Isley. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 80.0% of registrations being female. The average person named Isley today is around 12 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Isley births was 2016 (115 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Isley. 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 Isley with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Isley is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 12 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
1.4K
~ 1 in 247,655 Americans
Peak year
2016
115 babies that year
Average age
12
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,610
Tracked since 1990
Census
Isley in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,018 people with the first name Isley, which placed it at #12,275 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
#12,275
National first-name rank
People counted
1.0K
1,018 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
48.7% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Isley
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Isley is White at 48.7%. The next largest groups are Black (21.0%) and Hispanic (14.6%). 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 Isley 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 Isley at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White48.7% · 496
- Black or African American21.0% · 214
- Hispanic or Latino14.6% · 149
- Two or more races11.1% · 113
- Asian and Pacific Islander3.6% · 37
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 9
Gender
Gender distribution for Isley
Isley is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 1,397 total registrations, 280 (20.0%) were male and 1,117 (80.0%) were female.
Isley as a male name
- Ranked #7,941 in 2024
- 10 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2016 (22 births)
Isley as a female name
- Ranked #2,610 in 2024
- 67 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2016 (93 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Isley on both sides of the split. Of the 1,024 people counted with this name, 240 were male (23.4%) and 784 were female (76.6%).
Popularity
Isley: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Isley from the 1990s through to the 2020s, spanning 4 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 716 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Isley remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Isley 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 Isley during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Isleys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 13 states and territories. California, Texas, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Isley, while Washington, Utah, Minnesota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 18 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Isley
The name Isley has its origins rooted in the ancient Germanic languages, traced back to the Old English and Old Norse words "is" meaning "ice" and "ley" meaning "wood" or "clearing." It essentially translates to "ice wood" or "ice clearing." This name was primarily used in regions where Germanic tribes and settlers resided during the early medieval period, including parts of modern-day England, Germany, and Scandinavia.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Isley can be found in the Domesday Book, a comprehensive survey of land and property commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086. The entry mentions an individual named Isley, who was a landowner in the county of Essex, England.
In the 12th century, a notable figure named Isley de Courcy was a Norman knight who participated in the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. He was granted lands in Ulster and became a prominent figure in the region.
During the Renaissance period, Isley Ramsey, an English mathematician and astronomer born in 1594, made significant contributions to the field of celestial mechanics. He is credited with developing methods for calculating the orbits of comets and planets.
In the 18th century, Isley Walton, an English poet and playwright born in 1742, gained recognition for his works, including the play "The Vindictive Man" and a collection of poems titled "Poetical Miscellanies."
Isley Granger, born in 1876, was a French explorer and ethnographer who conducted extensive research on the indigenous cultures of West Africa. His writings and documentation of these societies have been invaluable in understanding their traditions and way of life.
While the name Isley has been more commonly used as a surname in modern times, it has a rich historical background as a given name, reflecting its roots in the ancient Germanic languages and the cultural influences of various regions throughout history.
People
Isley + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Isley as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with I
Other first names starting with I with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Isley: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Isley?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,384 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Isley 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 247,655 US residents.
Is Isley a common name?
We classify Isley as "Rare". It ranks above 92% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,397 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Isley most popular?
The single biggest year for Isley was 2016, when 115 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Isley is about 12 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Isley in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,018 people with the name Isley, or 0.34 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #12,275 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 Isley 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 Isley?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Isley on both sides of the split. Of the 1,024 people counted with this name, 240 were male (23.4%) and 784 were female (76.6%). 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 Isley?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Isley is White at 48.7%. The next largest groups are Black (21.0%) and Hispanic (14.6%). 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 Isley most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Isley in the 2020 Census, accounting for 48.7% (496 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 Isley in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Isley a female name?
Yes, 80.0% of people registered as Isley 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 Isley still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Isley 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 Isley 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 Isley?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.