Riley
Feminine
Riley is given to both — 141,960 girls and 105,025 boys since 1880. See Riley as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Riley began as a surname on two shores at once — an Irish family name from the O'Reilly line, and an English one from a Lancashire place meaning a clearing where rye grew. It crossed into first-name use in America nearly a century ago and has never left the record since. Two syllables, both open and easy: RYE-lee, a name that ends on a rising note.
How old is the name Riley?
Riley first appears in US birth records in 1923 — 102 years ago. The typical Riley is a kid of about 12 — this name's wave is very recent. About 141,000 people named Riley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Riley most popular?
Riley peaked in 2016, reaching #22 nationally. Today it ranks #48, 26 places below that high. See the whole 2016 chart.
Riley appears on these lists:
- Distinctly American names
- America's top 100 names right now
- Borrowed from the boys: names girls are winning
- Generation Alpha names (born 2013 onward)
- Two-syllable names, the American default
- Five-letter names, the comfortable middle
- all guides
Works in British and Irish families too:
Where it comes from
From Raghallach to Riley
The story of Riley
The Irish road runs through Ó Raghallaigh, the name of a family long associated with County Cavan, anglicized as O'Reilly and then Reilly, with Riley emerging as one of its common spellings among emigrants. The English road is quite separate: a place name from Lancashire, built from the Old English words for rye and for a woodland clearing, which became a surname for people who came from there. Both surnames landed in America in quantity in the nineteenth century, and by the early twentieth Riley had begun appearing on birth records as a first name. It was a boys' name first in that transition, as surname-names usually are, and only later became the mostly-girls' name it is in US records today.
Meaningscholars disagree
Either 'descendant of Raghallach' (Irish) or 'rye clearing' (English)
Two separate surnames arrived at the same spelling. The Irish Ó Raghallaigh means 'descendant of Raghallach', an old personal name whose own meaning has never been settled. The English Riley comes from places such as Ryley in Lancashire, from Old English ryge 'rye' and lēah 'wood, clearing'. Both readings are sound; which one sits behind a particular family usually depends on where that family came from.
Cultural footprint
Riley Keough (b. 1989) — Daisy Jones & the Six star, Elvis Presley's granddaughter
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Raghallach
- Ó Raghallaigh
- O'Reilly
- Reilly
- Riley
Related forms: Ó Raghallaigh · Reilly · Rylee · Ryleigh
Pronouncing Riley
RYE-lee
Stress on the first syllable. Pronounced the same way for boys and girls, and identically across Reilly, Rylee and Ryleigh.
Nicknames for Riley
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
- 1923
- Most girls named
- 20167,159 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #22reached in 2016
- Change vs 2024
- −4.6%4,441 in 2025, from 4,657
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.
Riley in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ó Raghallaigh in Irish — related form
- Reilly in English — spelling variant
- Rylee in English — spelling variant
- Ryleigh in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York. International figures from Statistics Canada. Sources
Rileys among us
people named Riley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 362 born in 2025 was named Riley
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 Ruby test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Riley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Ruby climbed just as high around 1911, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Ruby's path sketches the road Riley is walking now.
Riley is coming down from a big peak (#22 in 2016). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Riley is headed
Riley should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Riley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Riley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads exactly as it is spelled for English speakers — no correction needed after the first hearing.
- Works for a boy or a girl without changing anything, since the source is a family name rather than a gendered one.
- Two clean syllables that sit easily beside most surnames, long or short.
- Familiar in Canada as well as the US, so it travels without explanation in English-speaking countries.
- Carries a genuine, traceable line back through Reilly and O'Reilly to medieval Ireland.
- The spelling competes with Rylee, Ryleigh and Reilly, all pronounced the same. Expect to spell it aloud fairly often, though the plain Riley form is the one most people default to.
- In the US this spelling goes mainly to girls, so a boy named Riley will meet the occasional wrong assumption on a class list or a form. It is a correction, not a problem.
- Its wave is recent and concentrated, so most Rileys alive today are close in age — the name reads as belonging to a particular generation rather than as an old family name.
- It is stepping back from its high point, which in practice means a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate while still meeting a name everyone already recognizes.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Riley to the vote.
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What they receive
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Riley
Feminine · #48 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Rileys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 141,000 people named Riley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Riley in 2025?
- Riley ranks #48 among US girl names in 2025, with 4,441 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Riley?
- About 1 in every 362 US girls born in 2025 was named Riley — 4,441 in all.
- Will my child share the name Riley with classmates?
- Riley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Riley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Eloise#49 · Naomi#47 · Sadie#50 · Nova#46 · Delilah#51 · Emilia#45 · Willow#44 · Stella#52
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Riley? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Riley and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration; international figures from national statistics agencies. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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