Skyler
- Pronunciation
- [Sky-ler]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Phonetic Spelling Of Schuyler.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Skyler
Skyler is a modern American spelling variant of Schuyler, descending from the Dutch surname Schuyler meaning "scholar" or "teacher" — referring originally to medieval Dutch academics. The name has been continuously used in Dutch-American naming since the colonial period, particularly in the historic Schuyler family of Albany, New York (which included Philip Schuyler, the iconic American Revolutionary War general and member of the Continental Congress, and his iconic daughter Eliza Schuyler Hamilton — Hamilton's wife).
The name's overwhelming modern American cultural anchor is the iconic Skyler White of AMC's Breaking Bad (2008–2013, played by Anna Gunn) — the wife of Walter White, anchoring the name in late-2000s and 2010s American TV memory. Other notable bearers include American basketball player Skyler Cordry; the contemporary fictional Skyler of various contemporary novels.
Skyler's American climb has been substantial: the name climbed from outside the US top 1000 in 1990 to the US top 300 boys' rank by 2014 and the top 300 since. The name is also popular for girls and is one of the most-used gender-neutral names in modern American naming. The name's appeal sits in three contemporary American naming preferences: the surname-style sophistication, the in-built Dutch-American historical heritage, and the popular two-syllable -ler ending family (Skyler, Tyler, Hunter, Carter). Two firm syllables, soft consonants, and tonal versatility from rural-American to upwardly-mobile-American. The name reads as both classical-Dutch and distinctly contemporary American with the strong Skyler White cultural anchor. Common nicknames Sky (the dominant short form, casual and warm — also a popular standalone name on its own), Skye, and the rare Ler each carry distinct registers; the alternate spellings Skyler (the more popular American form), Schuyler (the historical Dutch spelling), and Skylar have their own SSA tracking. International forms include Schuyler (Dutch original).
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Skyler
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Skyler by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2002 with 1,558 boys named Skyler (boy rank #222 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #783 for boys (325 US births). That's 561 places below its 2002 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 Skyler Most Popular?
Average boy-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 boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Skyler the strongest states are Hawaii, Idaho, New Mexico.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #213 | 50 |
| 2 | Idaho | #304 | 33 |
| 3 | New Mexico | #337 | 21 |
| 4 | Nevada | #387 | 45 |
| 5 | Oregon | #401 | 100 |
| 6 | Utah | #405 | 114 |
| 7 | Nebraska | #429 | 25 |
| 8 | Washington | #433 | 183 |
| 9 | California | #454 | 704 |
| 10 | Arkansas | #465 | 37 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | #823 | 102 |
| 2 | Texas | #823 | 245 |
| 3 | Illinois | #784 | 86 |
| 4 | Virginia | #757 | 77 |
| 5 | North Carolina | #735 | 109 |
| 6 | Ohio | #701 | 139 |
| 7 | New Jersey | #697 | 88 |
| 8 | Massachusetts | #668 | 35 |
| 9 | Pennsylvania | #663 | 144 |
| 10 | Maryland | #650 | 57 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Skyler in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
Looking for names like Skyler?
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 Skyler to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Skyler against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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