Adalee
Feminine
Adalee is one of those American names that turns out to have a longer paper trail than its recent rise suggests: it appeared quietly in the records generations before the current wave of -lee names arrived. Said aloud it falls in three light beats, with two familiar names inside it — Ada at the front, Lee at the close.
How old is the name Adalee?
Adalee first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Adalee is a kid of about 6 — this name's wave is very recent. About 4,600 people named Adalee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Adalee most popular?
Adalee peaked in 2022, reaching #670 nationally. Today it ranks #987, 317 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Adalee
Adalee belongs to a group of names that were assembled rather than inherited, and the assembly happened in American usage rather than in any older language. Both halves are genuinely old: Ada stands on its own across English, German and Scandinavian records, and Lee spread from an English place name to a surname to one of the most common middle names given in the United States. Names ending in -lee and -leigh — Annalee, Emmalee, Ashlee among them — moved together as a group in twentieth-century American naming, and Adalee sits inside that pattern. The record shows it in use long before its recent climb, thinly and steadily, which is a different story from a name invented yesterday.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Adalee has no established meaning as a whole. What is documented are its parts: Ada, long used in English and German as a short form of names built on the Germanic element adal, "noble"; and Lee, an English surname and place name from Old English leah, "clearing, meadow." Whether any given family had that combination in mind is not something the record shows.
Pronouncing Adalee
AD-uh-lee
Stress on the first syllable, three beats. Some families say AY-duh-lee, following the usual English pronunciation of Ada; both are heard, so it is worth deciding which one you want and saying it first.
Nicknames for Adalee
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 2022435 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #670reached in 2022
- Change vs 2024
- −26.9%256 in 2025, from 350
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Adalee in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Adalie in English — spelling variant
- Adaleigh in English — spelling variant
- Adaly in English — spelling variant
- Ada in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Tennessee.
Adalees among us
people named Adalee are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 6,278 born in 2025 was named Adalee
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Chantelle test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Adalee's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Chantelle climbed just as high around 1989, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Chantelle's path sketches the road Adalee is walking now.
Adalee sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Adalee is headed
Adalee should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Adalee beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Adalee in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Built from two names Americans already know how to read, so it is rarely mispronounced on sight even by people meeting it for the first time.
- Comes with ready-made short forms — Ada and Addie — one of which is a complete, historically documented name on its own.
- Sits inside a familiar family of -lee names, so it sounds settled rather than unplaceable while still being uncommon in practice.
- Present in the records over many decades, not only in the recent wave, which gives it more depth than its current visibility suggests.
- The spelling competes with Adalie, Adaleigh and Adaly, so expect to spell it out over the phone and in doctors' offices for life.
- Its short forms land in a very busy zone: Addie is shared with Adeline, Adelaide and Addison, all well represented among children now.
- No established meaning attaches to the name as a whole. If a documented translation matters to you, this one will not give you a firm answer — only the older stories of Ada and Lee separately.
- The wave of children carrying it is very recent and now easing back slightly, so it will read as a name of this era rather than a neutral one — much as Lisa or Tracy once did.
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What they receive
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Adalee
Feminine · #987 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Adalees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,600 people named Adalee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Adalee in 2025?
- Adalee ranks #987 among US girl names in 2025, with 256 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Adalee?
- About 1 in every 6,278 US girls born in 2025 was named Adalee — 256 in all.
- Will my child share the name Adalee with classmates?
- Adalee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Adalee
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Addilyn#987 · Lisa#987 · Laken#987 · Karter#987 · Akira#983 · Arely#983 · Kamiyah#983 · Skyla#983
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Adalee? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Adalee and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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