Bradlee
Masculine · “broad clearing”
Bradlee is given to both — 3,470 boys and 400 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Bradlee is a respelling of Bradley, and the broad clearing it names recurs so often in England that it is one of the commonest place names there.
How old is the name Bradlee?
Bradlee first appears in US birth records in 1947 — 78 years ago. The typical Bradlee alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 3,300 people named Bradlee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bradlee most popular?
Bradlee peaked in 1996, reaching #1167 nationally. Today it ranks #4249, 3,082 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Bradlee
Ours, offered as ours. Leah is worth pausing on: it meant a clearing in woodland, which in Anglo-Saxon England was the ordinary way to make farmland, so an enormous share of English place names end in -ley or -leigh. That density is a record of forest clearance across several centuries. Bradley is one of the plainest of them — a broad clearing — and it turns up wherever the work was done on a large scale.
Meaning
broad clearing
From Old English brad, broad, and leah, a woodland clearing; the compound names villages in at least fifteen counties, so English Bradleys descend from many unrelated families.
Pronouncing Bradlee
BRAD-lee
Two syllables, first stressed. Bradlee and Bradley are said identically.
Nicknames for Bradlee
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
- 1947
- Most boys named
- 1996100 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1167reached in 1996
- Change vs 2023
- −4.0%24 in 2025, from 25
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.
Bradlee in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bradley in English — spelling variant
- Bradleigh in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Florida, California.
Bradlees among us
people named Bradlee are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 71,170 born in 2025 was named Bradlee
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 Lavell test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Bradlee's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lavell climbed just as high around 1968, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lavell's path sketches the road Bradlee is walking now.
Bradlee 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
Bradlee beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Bradlee in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled place-name meaning that is completely transparent.
- Brad and Lee are both complete names in their own right.
- Read correctly on sight by every English speaker.
- Bradley is the standard spelling and will be written for him constantly.
- It is strongly associated with one American decade.
- Bradlee, Bradly and Bradleigh are all in use and only Bradley is common.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Bradlee
Masculine · #4249 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bradlees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,300 people named Bradlee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bradlee in 2025?
- Bradlee ranks #4249 among US boy names in 2025, with 24 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Bradlee?
- About 1 in every 71,170 US boys born in 2025 was named Bradlee — 24 in all.
- Will my child share the name Bradlee with classmates?
- Bradlee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Bradlee
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Guadalupe#4249 · Denny#4249 · Hughes#4249 · Erling#4249 · Rodrick#4249 · Elric#4249 · Ron#4249 · Wright#4249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bradlee? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bradlee and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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