Head to head · Girls' names
Isla vs Ivy
#28 vs #39 in 2025 · both climbing the charts fast
Isla is a whisker ahead (#28 vs #39 in 2025) and both are climbing the charts fast. The records will not split these two — sound, story and your own last name will.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
The tale of the tape
The tape is even: Isla and Ivy each lead 3 measures of 6.
Ranks, counts and years are measured in the official US birth record; the classroom and living figures are estimates computed from it. The dot marks the side each measure favours on the charts — more common, not better.
What the records say
146 years of US births, drawn on one scale
Two curves, one scale
Who owned which decade
- 1880s: Isla #956, Ivy #276 — Ivy higher
- 1890s: Isla #1222, Ivy #320 — Ivy higher
- 1900s: Isla #1188, Ivy #402 — Ivy higher
- 1910s: Isla #1313, Ivy #496 — Ivy higher
- 1920s: Isla #1622, Ivy #675 — Ivy higher
- 1930s: Isla #1914, Ivy #768 — Ivy higher
- 1940s: Isla #3408, Ivy #899 — Ivy higher
- 1950s: Isla #4024, Ivy #592 — Ivy higher
- 1960s: Isla #6619, Ivy #730 — Ivy higher
- 1970s: Isla #8474, Ivy #632 — Ivy higher
- 1980s: Isla #9116, Ivy #615 — Ivy higher
- 1990s: Isla #6949, Ivy #543 — Ivy higher
- 2000s: Isla #2769, Ivy #346 — Ivy higher
- 2010s: Isla #162, Ivy #155 — Ivy higher
- 2020s: Isla #35, Ivy #43 — Isla higher
Ivy stood higher in 14 of 15 decades; Isla took the 2020s.
Rank by decade
| Decade | Isla | Ivy |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | #956 | #276 |
| 1890s | #1222 | #320 |
| 1900s | #1188 | #402 |
| 1910s | #1313 | #496 |
| 1920s | #1622 | #675 |
| 1930s | #1914 | #768 |
| 1940s | #3408 | #899 |
| 1950s | #4024 | #592 |
| 1960s | #6619 | #730 |
| 1970s | #8474 | #632 |
| 1980s | #9116 | #615 |
| 1990s | #6949 | #543 |
| 2000s | #2769 | #346 |
| 2010s | #162 | #155 |
| 2020s | #35 | #43 |
Average national rank across each decade. A dash means the name sat outside the recorded top of that decade.
Around the world
Isla
- Scotland#2
- England & Wales#4
- Canada#13
Ivy
- England & Wales#5
- Scotland#16
- Canada#33
National statistics offices, latest published year.
The names themselves
Meaning, roots, sound and the people who carried each
Where each name comes from
Isla
From a Scottish place name — the island of Islay and the rivers Isla
The derivation from the place name is well accepted. What Islay itself originally meant is not established; the name is old enough that it predates reliable record, with both Norse and pre-Gaelic explanations offered and none demonstrated. Separately, isla is the ordinary Spanish word for island — a coincidence of spelling rather than a shared root, but one that Spanish-speaking families notice straight away.
Ìle → Islay → Isla
How it traveled
Islay has been inhabited and named for far longer than any record of it as a personal name; in Gaelic the island is Ìle. Scottish families began using Isla as a girl's given name in the nineteenth century, part of a wider habit of drawing first names from rivers, glens and islands.
Ivy
The ivy plant — the climbing evergreen
From Old English īfig, the ordinary word for the plant, used directly as a name.
īfig (Old English) → ivy (English plant name) → Ivy
How it traveled
Ivy is an English vocabulary name, taken straight from the plant: Old English īfig, a climber that stays green when everything around it has gone bare. Ivy wreaths were worn at the Greek and Roman festivals of Dionysus and Bacchus, and the plant kept a place in English midwinter custom — the traditional carol "The Holly and the Ivy" pairs the two as evergreens of the season.
Where a reading is contested the note says so — this page does not turn a guess into a fact. The chain is each name's recorded forms, oldest first; the story is its opening, told in full on the name's own page.
Out loud, and in short
Isla
EYE-la
The s is silent, as in island. Two common departures: an English speaker seeing it for the first time may try IS-la, and a Spanish speaker will naturally read it as EES-la, since it matches the Spanish word for island. Both are easily corrected, but expect to do the correcting.
- Izzy — Informal; shared with Isabel and Isabella, so it does not point back to one spelling.
- Is — Very informal, family-level; not used as a name on its own.
Ivy
EYE-vee
Two syllables, stress on the first. The pronunciation is settled wherever English is spoken, and matches the plant exactly.
- Ivy-Rose — Not a short form but a hyphenated compound in real use in England and Wales, where Ivy is often paired with a second name.
Who has carried each name
Isla
Isla Fisher (b. 1976) — Comedy standout of Wedding Crashers and Confessions of a Shopaholic
Ivy
No documented entry for Ivy yet.
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
Is it right for you
The differences that decide it, laid out by what you want
Choose by what you want
Choose Isla if you want…
- a name most people already know#28 in 2025, 6,012 babies that year
- a newer arrivalIsla entered the US charts in 1886
Choose Ivy if you want…
- a name fewer children share#39 in 2025 — ivy will almost certainly be the only one in school
- a long American recordIvy was already in use when US records began in 1880
Each line is a measured difference between the two names — a rank, a count, a recorded form — never a judgement of either. Save the one that answers your question; it lands on your shortlist.
The trade-offs, name by name
Isla
Strengths
- Short, already complete, and needs no nickname to be usable at any age.
- Charts in Scotland, England and Wales, and Canada as well as the US, so it is recognized on both sides of the Atlantic.
- One dominant spelling, which keeps forms and rosters simple.
To consider
- The silent s means a lifetime of small corrections, both in speech and when someone hears it and writes Ayla or Isla as IS-la.
- Its rise is recent and steep, so it is far more common among small children than among adults — the balance may look different by the time she is in high school.
- Izzy overlaps with Isabella and Isabel, which are well represented in the same age group.
Ivy
Strengths
- Spelled the way the English word is spelled, so most people write it correctly on the first try.
- One settled pronunciation across every English-speaking country, with no regional variants to correct.
- Short enough to need no nickname, and it sits easily beside longer or more formal middle names.
To consider
- It is rising quickly, so a child born now is likely to meet more Ivys among her classmates than the current figures suggest.
- There is no natural short form and no long formal version to retreat to. Ivy is what she will be called in every register, from the playground to a résumé.
- The word carries other associations — the Ivy League, poison ivy — that children notice and joke about, usually briefly.
Documented properties of each name — how it spells, travels and shortens — not opinions about the child.
With your last name
Say both in full. The notes are facts about letters and sound — a rhyme, a shared initial, the monogram — not a verdict on either name.
Type a last name to hear Isla and Ivy in full.
Weighing the whole shortlist? Run the full comparison — up to eight names with your last name, initials, classroom projections and a printable report.
Decide together
Nobody names a baby alone
Still torn between Isla and Ivy?
Put both to the vote.
One link to your partner, your parents, your sister. Each of them gets the two names, a one-tap answer and room to say why — and every reply lands in one place.
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More than two in the running? Settle it with a bracket or run the full comparison with your last name.
More head-to-heads
Same measures, different pair. Sixty more are dealt daily in the arena.
Lists that carry both names
- Short and sweet: names of four letters or fewer
- Transatlantic hits: loved on both sides of the ocean
- America's top 100 names right now
- Vowel names: soft starts from A to O
- all guides
Every list here names both Isla and Ivy — the same style, ranked by the same records.
Isla or Ivy — the short answers
- Which is more popular, Isla or Ivy?
- Isla, in 2025: Isla ranked #28 with 6,012 babies; Ivy ranked #39 with 5,117 babies.
- Which name is rising faster, Isla or Ivy?
- Ivy. Over the last five years Isla moved up 16 places; Ivy moved up 18 places.
- Which is the older name, Isla or Ivy?
- Isla entered the US charts in 1886; Ivy was already in use when US records began in 1880. On the American record, Ivy is the older name.
- How many people are named Isla and Ivy?
- About 57,000 people named Isla are estimated to be alive in the US today. About 76,000 people named Ivy are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- Will there be other Islas or Ivys in the classroom?
- Isla will almost certainly be the only one in school. Ivy will almost certainly be the only one in school.
US figures from the Social Security Administration, 1880–2025; international figures from national statistics agencies. Votes are battle voters on this site, not the birth record. Data & methodology
Keep playing
Sixty more head-to-heads are dealt in the arena every day — or line up Isla, Ivy and the rest of your shortlist with your last name in one printable report.
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