Ainsley
Feminine · English roots · “a woodland clearing”
Ainsley is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 20,470 girls against 426 boys since 1880.
Ainsley began as a place in the English Midlands, became a Scottish family name, and only later stepped forward as a first name — a long journey for four letters and a soft ending. It shares that ending with Ainslie and Ansley, the older spellings still carried by families today, and it lands easily in the mouth: two syllables, both open, nothing to trip over.
How old is the name Ainsley?
Ainsley first appears in US birth records in 1961 — 64 years ago. The typical Ainsley alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 20,500 people named Ainsley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ainsley most popular?
Ainsley peaked in 2013, reaching #332 nationally. Today it ranks #483, 151 places below that high. See the whole 2013 chart.
Ainsley appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Ansley / Annesley (English place names) to Ainsley
The story of Ainsley
The name starts as English geography — settlements recorded as Ansley in Warwickshire and Annesley in Nottinghamshire, both built from the Old English word for a woodland clearing. Families took their names from those places, and the surname traveled north, where Scottish records fixed it in the spelling Ainslie. From surname to first name is a well-worn path in Scottish naming, and Ainsley walked it first for boys — it remains a male name in Britain, where Ainsley and Ainslie are both still given. In the United States it arrived later and settled on the girls' side, where it has stayed since, familiar without ever being everywhere.
Meaningscholars disagree
a woodland clearing — either a hermitage clearing or a solitary one
Everyone agrees on the second half: Old English lēah, a clearing or glade in woodland. The first element is where the readings part. One traces it to ānsetl, 'hermitage' — a clearing where a hermit lived. The other reads ān, 'one, alone' — a solitary clearing. Both are serious, and the surname's spread across several English place names makes it likely that different families arrived at Ainsley by different roads.
How the name formed
- Ansley / AnnesleyEnglish place names
- AinslieScottish surname
- Ainsley
Related forms: Ainslie · Ansley · Ainsleigh
Pronouncing Ainsley
AYNZ-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. The s sounds like a z. Rhymes with the second half of 'brainsly' — and it is rarely mispronounced once seen, though it is often respelled.
Nicknames for Ainsley
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
- 1961
- Most girls named
- 20141,001 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #332reached in 2013
- Change vs 2024
- +55.6%621 in 2025, from 399
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.
Ainsley in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ainslie in Scots — spelling variant
- Ansley in English — related form
- Ainsleigh in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Pennsylvania.
Ainsleys among us
people named Ainsley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 2,588 born in 2025 was named Ainsley
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 Robbie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Ainsley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Robbie climbed just as high around 1932, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Robbie's path sketches the road Ainsley is walking now.
Ainsley 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 Ainsley is headed
Ainsley is easing off slowly — about 27% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Ainsley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Ainsley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Phonetically transparent: almost anyone who hears it can take a fair stab at spelling it, and anyone who reads it will say it right.
- A documented line running back to medieval English place names, through a Scottish surname, into first-name use.
- Has a real short form in use, Ains, plus a full form that works unchanged from kindergarten to a résumé.
- Works on either side of the Atlantic, though as a girls' name in the US and still a boys' name in Britain.
- Four spellings compete — Ainsley, Ainslie, Ansley, Ainsleigh — so expect to spell it aloud fairly often, and expect the occasional form to come back wrong.
- It sits in a crowded neighborhood of -ley and -lee endings for girls, so it may rhyme with two or three classmates' names even if no one shares the spelling.
- In Britain it reads as a man's name, which matters mainly for travel, international schools or an unfamiliar reader assuming the wrong pronoun on paper.
- The name is easing back from its high point rather than climbing, which in practice means a child is unlikely to share it with anyone in her year.
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Ainsley
Feminine · English roots · #483 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Ainsleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 20,500 people named Ainsley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ainsley in 2025?
- Ainsley ranks #483 among US girl names in 2025, with 621 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Ainsley?
- About 1 in every 2,588 US girls born in 2025 was named Ainsley — 621 in all.
- Will my child share the name Ainsley with classmates?
- Ainsley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Ainsley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alivia#484 · Anahi#482 · Aniyah#485 · Arielle#485 · Renata#481 · Saige#480 · Cameron#487 · Haisley#479
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ainsley? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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