Ailene
Feminine
Eileen looks Irish and is not, or rather it is Irish the way a returned emigrant is: the name went to Ireland from Norman France as Aveline, became thoroughly Irish as Eibhlin over five hundred years, and came back to England in the nineteenth century looking like something Ireland had invented.
How old is the name Ailene?
Ailene first appears in US birth records in 1900 — 125 years ago. The typical Ailene alive today was born around 1946, making them about 79 years old. About 1,200 people named Ailene are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ailene most popular?
Ailene peaked in 1926, reaching #997 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 5,328 places below that high. See the whole 1926 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aveline to Ailene
The story of Ailene
Aveline came to England and Ireland with the Normans in the twelfth century. In Ireland it was absorbed as Eibhlin and became one of the standard women's names of the Gaelic tradition, appearing in the great eighteenth-century lament for Art O'Leary composed by Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonaill. When Irish names became fashionable in nineteenth-century England and America, Eibhlin was written back into English as Eileen, Aileen and Ailene, and by then nothing about it looked French. Ailene's best American year is 1926, at the height of the Irish-name fashion, and the same Norman original also gave English Evelyn by a completely separate route.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Eileen is the anglicized Eibhlin, which the Irish took from Norman French Aveline, a diminutive of a Germanic name built on the element avi, whose sense is not recovered. A separate and long-printed tradition connects Eileen to Helen and to Greek for light, which is a folk association rather than a derivation. The name has traveled through three languages and lost its meaning somewhere in the second.
How the name formed
- Aveline
- Eibhlin
- Eileen
- Ailene
Related forms: Eibhlin · Eileen · Aileen · Aveline
Pronouncing Ailene
eye-LEEN
Two syllables with the stress at the end. A minority say AY-leen, front-stressed, which is closer to the Aileen spelling; both are heard.
Nicknames for Ailene
Moderate
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
- 1900
- Most girls named
- 192451 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #997reached in 1926
- Change vs 2023
- +125.0%18 in 2025, from 8
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.
Ailene in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Eibhlin in Irish — same name
- Eileen in English — spelling variant
- Aileen in English — spelling variant
- Aveline in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Ailenes among us
people named Ailene are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Ailene
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Ailene
- #6325
- Ailene on the 2025 chart
- #917
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Ailene went to 18 girls in 2025, but Aylene and Aylenne are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 43, which makes it the 917th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,408 places above the chart.
- Ailene18
- Aylene15
- Aylenne10
About 1 girl in 37,378 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 89,293 for Ailene itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Arietta test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ailene's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Arietta climbed just as high around 1910, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Arietta's path sketches the road Ailene is walking now.
Ailene 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
Ailene beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ailene in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A thousand years of documented travel behind it, through three languages.
- Familiar by sound to everyone while being an uncommon spelling.
- Related to Evelyn by descent, which few people realize.
- Eileen and Aileen are both far more common and will be written instead.
- The Greek light meaning is widely printed for it and is not the real derivation.
- It reads as a name from the 1920s and 1930s in American ears.
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What they receive
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Ailene
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ailenes are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Ailene are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Ailene?
- Ailene is the most-used spelling in US records — 18 of the 43 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Aylene and Aylenne.
- How popular is the name Ailene in 2025?
- Ailene ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ailene?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Ailene — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ailene with classmates?
- Ailene will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ailene
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ailene? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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