9BabyNames Baby names with meanings & US popularity data

Xavier vs Liam

How Xavier 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

Xavier

Male · Arabic

Meaning: Bright: Splendid. See Also Javier.

Liam

Male · Gaelic

Meaning: Helmeted

US Popularity History — Side-by-Side

Annual US births named Xavier (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 Xavier Liam
Peak year (most US births) 2007 — 6,560 boys 2024 — 22,164 boys
Peak rank #68 #1
Most recent rank (2025) #108 (3,232 births) #1 (20,818 births)
Total US births since 1880 122,458 343,615
Last 10 years (2016–2025) 38,932 202,429

Peak comparison takeaway

At its all-time peak, Liam reached 22,164 US births in 2024 — 15,604 more than Xavier's peak count.

Crossover Years

Years where one name first passed the other in annual US births. A name "winning" in a year means it had more births that year, not necessarily a higher rank.

Year New leader Xavier births Liam births
2009 Liam 6,222 8,567

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.

Xavier — top 5 states

#StateAvg rankBirths
1 New Mexico #44 360
2 Nevada #59 471
3 Arizona #59 1,192
4 California #66 5,877
5 West Virginia #80 250

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 →