Bradly
Masculine · “Old English "broad clearing”
Bradly is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 9,343 boys against 11 girls since 1880.
Bradley preserves a vowel that English has moved on from. The Old English brād, broad, became brawd in most of the language but kept its older value inside place names — so Bradley is the broad clearing, said with a vowel the word broad abandoned.
How old is the name Bradly?
Bradly first appears in US birth records in 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Bradly alive today was born around 1985, making them about 40 years old. About 8,600 people named Bradly are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Bradly most popular?
Bradly peaked in 1982, reaching #583 nationally. Today it ranks #7679, 7,096 places below that high. See the whole 1982 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From brād-lēah to Bradly
The story of Bradly
The Old English long ā is one of the most consequential vowels in the history of the language, because it moved in one direction in the south and another in the north. Southern English turned stān into stone, hām into home, āc into oak and bān into bone; northern English and Scots kept a vowel closer to the original, which is why Scots has stane, hame and bane. Place names froze at various points along the way, and Brad- names preserve the vowel before the change. The result is that a modern speaker saying Bradley is using a fourteen-hundred-year-old pronunciation of a word he says differently in every other context. Bradly peaks in America in 1982.
Meaning
Old English "broad clearing"
From brād, broad or wide, plus lēah, a woodland clearing — one of the commonest English place names, with Bradleys in most counties. Old English long ā became the vowel of stone, home and oak in later English, and in some words a further change gave the vowel of broad; place names frequently froze at an earlier stage. Bradly with one e is an American respelling.
How the name formed
- brād-lēah
- Bradley
- Bradly
Related forms: Bradley · Bradleigh
Pronouncing Bradly
BRAD-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Bradley and Bradly are pronounced identically; the missing e changes nothing audible.
Nicknames for Bradly
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
- 1946
- Most boys named
- 1990254 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #583reached in 1982
- Change vs 2023
- −16.7%10 in 2025, from 12
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.
Bradly in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Bradley in English — spelling variant
- Bradleigh in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Florida.
Bradlys among us
people named Bradly are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 170,808 born in 2025 was named Bradly
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 Kirt test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Bradly's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kirt climbed just as high around 1962, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kirt's path sketches the road Bradly is walking now.
Bradly 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
Bradly beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Bradly in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The elements are transparent and settled.
- Brad is an immediate short form that stands alone.
- It is read correctly on sight by every English speaker.
- Bradley is the standard spelling and will be substituted constantly.
- The 1980s peak dates a bearer fairly clearly.
- The respelling changes nothing audible.
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Bradly
Masculine · #7679 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Bradlys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,600 people named Bradly are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Bradly in 2025?
- Bradly ranks #7679 among US boy names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Bradly?
- About 1 in every 170,808 US boys born in 2025 was named Bradly — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Bradly with classmates?
- Bradly will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Bradly
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Early#7679 · Obie#7679 · Huston#7679 · Knute#7679 · Rance#7679 · Blain#7679 · Doyle#7679 · Millard#7679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Bradly? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Bradly and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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