Leslie
- Pronunciation
- [Les-lie]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- From Leslie
- Origin
- Scottish
About the Name Leslie
Leslie is a Scottish place-name surname turned given name, derived from a location in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, whose name likely comes from the Gaelic leas celyn or a related form, though the exact etymology of the place name is not fully settled. The name's meaning — from Leslie — reflects its place-name origin rather than an independent word-meaning. It entered use as a given name through the Scottish and British aristocratic tradition of using family surnames as forenames — a practice that gave the name its distinguished character. It has been used historically for both men and women.
A notable bearer is Leslie Nielsen (born 1926), the Canadian-American actor whose six-decade career produced two distinct phases — first as a serious Hollywood dramatic leading man in the 1950s and 1960s, then as a beloved deadpan comedy actor in later decades.
In the SSA records for male use, Leslie first entered the top-1000 in 1887 and peaked in 1895 at rank #81, reflecting its Victorian-era popularity as a boys' name. It last appeared in the male top-1000 in 1909 at rank #96 with 292 births, accumulating nearly 5,000 top-1000 births across that span. The sole recorded variant is Leslee, an alternate spelling that leans into the more feminine visual register the name later acquired as it crossed gender lines.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Leslie
US Popularity History (1887–2025)
Annual US births named Leslie by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1957 with 6,103 girls named Leslie (girl rank #77 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #712 for girls (393 US births). That's 635 places below its 1957 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Leslie Most Popular?
Average girl-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Leslie the strongest states are New Mexico, California, Texas.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Mexico | #298 | 19 |
| 2 | California | #338 | 1,018 |
| 3 | Texas | #389 | 814 |
| 4 | Oregon | #455 | 51 |
| 5 | Illinois | #462 | 239 |
| 6 | Arkansas | #463 | 31 |
| 7 | Connecticut | #480 | 32 |
| 8 | Nevada | #486 | 31 |
| 9 | Washington | #486 | 123 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | #525 | 71 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Leslie in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leslee | Derived From Name Of A Prominent Scottish Clan Leslie. | Female | Scottish |
Famous People Named Leslie
1 notable figure from history and culture who share the name Leslie.
- Leslie Nielsen — Movie Actor (1926)
Looking for names like Leslie?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Leslie to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Leslie against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).