9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data

Boaz vs Liam

How Boaz and Liam compare across 146 years of US Social Security Administration baby-name records — popularity history, peak years, current rank, and which name overtook which.

Open Name Tournament

Boaz

Male · Hebrew

Meaning: Swift

Liam

Male · Gaelic

Meaning: Helmeted

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Boaz (boys) vs Liam (boys), from US Social Security Administration national records.

Source: US Social Security Administration. Names appearing fewer than 5 times per year are suppressed by SSA.

Quick Stats

Metric Boaz Liam
Peak year (most US births) 2025 — 268 boys 2024 — 22,164 boys
Peak rank #891 #1
Most recent rank (2025) #891 (268 births) #1 (20,818 births)
Total US births since 1880 505 343,615
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 505 202,429

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Liam reached 22,164 US births in 2024 — 21,896 more than Boaz's peak count.

Strongest States — Last 10 Years

States where each name ranked highest, from SSA's state-level dataset. Lower average rank = name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name list.

Boaz — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Idaho #365 24
2 Oregon #468 47
3 Kansas #529 17
4 Iowa #547 22
5 Colorado #605 34

Liam — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Nevada #1 1,758
2 New Jersey #1 6,079
3 Florida #1 14,195
4 Oklahoma #1 1,983
5 New York #1 12,930

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Data & methodology

Source: US Social Security Administration national baby names dataset 1880–2025 (CC0 public domain). Names with fewer than 5 occurrences in a given year are suppressed by SSA. State-level coverage runs 1910–2025. Crossover detection compares annual birth counts (not ranks) for each year both names appear. Methodology: see full notes. More comparisons →