Nealie
Feminine
Nealie is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 776 girls against 17 boys since 1880.
Nealie is recorded for boys and girls alike and is built on a Gaelic name with an unusual travel record. Most borrowing between the Norse and the Gaels went one way; this name went the other, and ended up as the title of a saga.
How old is the name Nealie?
Nealie was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Nealie alive today was born around 1916, making them about 109 years old. About 100 people named Nealie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Nealie most popular?
Nealie peaked in 1883, reaching #651 nationally. See the whole 1883 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Nealie
Norse settlers in Ireland and the Hebrides took a great deal from Gaelic, and one of the things they took was this name. It went into Old Norse as Njáll, traveled to Iceland with settlers from the Irish Sea, and became the name of the central figure of one of the greatest of the sagas: a lawyer, famously wise and famously beardless, who is burned in his house at the end of a feud he spent the whole book trying to settle. The saga is the longest and most admired of them all and Icelanders still argue about its cast as though they were neighbors. A Gaelic name reached medieval Iceland and stayed there, which very few did.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The Gaelic name behind Neal is old and its sense is argued over, with cloud, champion and passionate all proposed. This extended spelling is not documented directly and the record holds it for both sexes.
Pronouncing Nealie
NEE-lee
Two syllables with the stress in front. Nothing in it invites hesitation.
Nicknames for Nealie
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 191622 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #651reached in 1883
- Change vs 2012
- 0.0%5 in 2020, from 5
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.
Nealies among us
people named Nealie are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Nealie sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Neal comes off it as a short form and is a complete name on its own.
- It is read correctly at first sight by nearly everybody.
- It is recorded for boys and for girls, so it leaves a question open rather than closing it.
- The spelling is recorded for a few boys, but nearly every child with it is a girl.
- Nealy, Neeley and Nelly are all in the record and will be confused with it.
- No origin is documented for this spelling, so the meaning question belongs to the shorter name.
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Nealie
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Nealies are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 100 people named Nealie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Nealie in 2025?
- Nealie is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Nealie with classmates?
- Nealie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More N names
The most-given names starting with N, all years combined.
Nancy#965 · Nicole#382 · Natalie#89 · Norma#2002 · Nora#20 · Naomi#47 · Nellie#533 · Nina#324
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Nealie? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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