Lesley
Feminine · “garden of hollies”
Lesley is given to both — 34,301 girls and 4,797 boys since 1880. See Lesley as a boy nameSee other names given to both
In Britain, Lesley is the woman and Leslie is the man. The split is real, consistent and entirely conventional — nobody legislated it — and America never adopted it, which is why an American Leslie is usually a woman and a British one is usually not. Behind both is a place in Aberdeenshire and a poem by Burns.
How old is the name Lesley?
Lesley first appears in US birth records in 1893 — 132 years ago. The typical Lesley alive today was born around 1978, making them about 47 years old. About 32,000 people named Lesley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Lesley most popular?
Lesley peaked in 1979, reaching #267 nationally. Today it ranks #4546, 4,279 places below that high. See the whole 1979 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Lesslyn to Lesley
The story of Lesley
Robert Burns wrote Bonnie Lesley for a young woman he met in seventeen ninety-two, and it is among the more direct of his love songs — the one that says heaven had made her and then broken the mold. That poem is the earliest visible use of the -ey spelling for a woman, and it is a plausible reason the convention began. By the twentieth century the split was firm in Britain and absent in America, which produced the situation still in force: the same name reads as two different sexes depending on the country.
Meaningscholars disagree
garden of hollies
The Aberdeenshire place appears in early records as Lesslyn, and the usual reading joins a Gaelic word for a garden or enclosure with one for holly. That derivation is traditional and not firmly demonstrated. What is documented is the family: the Leslies held land there from the twelfth century and became earls of Rothes, and the surname is theirs before it is anyone's given name.
How the name formed
- Lesslyn
- Leslie
- Lesley
Pronouncing Lesley
LESS-lee
LESS-lee, two syllables, stress at the front. Leslie and Lesley are said identically; the ending carries the British sex convention and nothing else.
Nicknames for Lesley
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
- 1893
- Most girls named
- 1981870 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #267reached in 1979
- Change vs 2023
- +3.4%30 in 2025, from 29
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.
Lesley in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Lesleys among us
people named Lesley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 53,576 born in 2025 was named Lesley
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 Carmela test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Lesley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Carmela climbed just as high around 1923, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Carmela's path sketches the road Lesley is walking now.
Lesley 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 Lesley is headed
Lesley is easing off slowly — about 17% 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.
Lesley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Lesley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- There is a documented Scottish place, family and poem behind it.
- Les and Lee are both usable short forms and they work for either child.
- The -ey spelling reads clearly as a woman's name to anyone who knows the British convention.
- Leslie is far more common in America and the name will be written that way by default.
- The name reads as a man's in Britain if written Leslie and a woman's if written Lesley, which a family that moves will discover.
- It is closely tied to one American generation and dates a person fairly precisely.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Lesley
Feminine · #4546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Lesleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 32,000 people named Lesley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Lesley in 2025?
- Lesley ranks #4546 among US girl names in 2025, with 30 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Lesley?
- About 1 in every 53,576 US girls born in 2025 was named Lesley — 30 in all.
- Will my child share the name Lesley with classmates?
- Lesley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Lesley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Amie#4546 · Rashell#4546 · Renatta#4546 · Raisa#4546 · Amena#4546 · Aryn#4546 · Nadiya#4546 · Jeanne#4546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Lesley? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Lesley and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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