9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data Italiano

Carley vs Evelyn

How Carley and Evelyn 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

Carley

Female · English

Meaning: "A Free Person. A Feminine Form Of Charles, Also See Carla, Carol And Caroline."

Evelyn

Female · Celtic

Meaning: Light

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Carley (girls) vs Evelyn (girls), 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 Carley Evelyn
Peak year (most US births) 2000 — 687 girls 1921 — 14,278 girls
Peak rank #411 #12
Most recent rank (2013) #882 (293 births) #8 (9,123 births)
Total US births since 1880 6,800 555,984
Last 10 years (2004–2013) 4,397 97,423

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Evelyn reached 14,278 US births in 1921 — 13,591 more than Carley'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 girls-name list.

Carley — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Mississippi #526 17
2 Arkansas #554 16
3 Louisiana #683 28
4 Alabama #750 29
5 Missouri #826 26

Evelyn — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 Minnesota #3 2,360
2 Wisconsin #3 2,223
3 Oregon #4 1,348
4 Iowa #4 1,220
5 Idaho #4 719

Want a different comparison?

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 →