Harleigh
Feminine · “hare clearing”
Harleigh is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 5,272 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Harleigh dresses Harley in a -leigh ending, and the English place name behind it means the hare's clearing — a wood where hares were found.
How old is the name Harleigh?
Harleigh first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Harleigh is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 5,200 people named Harleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Harleigh most popular?
Harleigh peaked in 2018, reaching #874 nationally. Today it ranks #1534, 660 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Harleigh appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From hara leah to Harleigh
The story of Harleigh
Harley was an English place name and surname, carried by the Earls of Oxford whose library founded part of the British Museum's collection. It became an American given name, strongly masculine at first, and turned feminine in the 2000s. The -leigh respelling followed the wider fashion, and Harleigh appears in the registers from around 2010.
Meaningscholars disagree
hare clearing
From the Old English hara, 'hare', and leah, 'wood' or 'clearing'. A second reading takes the first element as hær, 'rock' or 'heap of stones'. Both are documented for the English places called Harley, and neither is settled. The -leigh spelling of leah is a nineteenth-century convention.
How the name formed
- hara leah
- Harley
- Harleigh
Related forms: Harley · Harlee
Pronouncing Harleigh
HAR-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Harleigh, Harley and Harlee are said identically.
Nicknames for Harleigh
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
- 1989
- Most girls named
- 2017312 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #874reached in 2018
- Change vs 2024
- −6.1%138 in 2025, from 147
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.
Harleigh in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Harley in English — spelling variant
- Harlee in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Georgia, Louisiana.
Harleighs among us
people named Harleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 11,647 born in 2025 was named Harleigh
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 Ruthanne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Harleigh's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ruthanne climbed just as high around 1944, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ruthanne's path sketches the road Harleigh is walking now.
Harleigh 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 Harleigh is headed
Harleigh is easing off slowly — about 24% 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.
Harleigh beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Harleigh in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The hare-clearing meaning is concrete and belongs to a real family of English place names.
- Leigh is available as a short form with its own record.
- Two clean syllables with no pronunciation risk.
- Harley is the standard spelling and carries a strong motorcycle association.
- The first element is genuinely disputed.
- The -leigh ending will need dictating every time.
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What they receive
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Harleigh
Feminine · #1534 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Harleighs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 5,200 people named Harleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Harleigh in 2025?
- Harleigh ranks #1534 among US girl names in 2025, with 138 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Harleigh?
- About 1 in every 11,647 US girls born in 2025 was named Harleigh — 138 in all.
- Will my child share the name Harleigh with classmates?
- Harleigh will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Harleigh
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Reem#1534 · Naziyah#1534 · Sofie#1534 · Renesmee#1534 · Paulette#1534 · Zylah#1540 · Riya#1540 · Laya#1540
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Harleigh? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Harleigh and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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