Bailey
- Pronunciation
- [Bai-ley]
- Gender
- Male
- Meaning
- Steward
- Origin
- French
About the Name Bailey
Bailey is a French-origin occupational surname meaning "steward" or "bailiff" — from the Old French baillis, referring to the administrative officer of a lord's estate or the keeper of a castle's outer courtyard (the "bailey" in medieval fortification terminology). The transfer of this surname to given-name use follows the well-established Anglo-American pattern of adopting occupational and topographic family names as first names, a trend that accelerated markedly in the late twentieth century as parents sought surnames that felt both distinctive and grounded. Bailey carries the accessible, friendly quality that has made similarly structured names — Riley, Hailey, Finley — enduringly popular.
On the male side of the SSA data, Bailey entered the top-1000 in 2000 at its peak rank of #202, accumulating 7,087 top-1000 births before dropping out of the male charts after 2010, when it ranked #997 with 196 births. The name's limited run in the male charts reflects its rapid transition to predominantly female use in American naming culture, where it was simultaneously charting as a girls' name with considerably more momentum throughout the same period.
The name's appeal lies in its breezy, two-syllable rhythm, its clean Anglo-French heritage, and its adaptability across genders — qualities that have made it a fixture of the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first-century naming landscape on both sides of the Atlantic. Recorded spelling variants include Bailly, Bali, and Bayley.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Bailey
US Popularity History (1995–2025)
Annual US births named Bailey by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 1998 with 5,199 girls named Bailey (girl rank #60 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #209 for girls (1,446 US births). That's 149 places below its 1998 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.
Paste the snippet below on any HTML page. Includes a credit link back to 9BabyNames — please keep it intact.
Where in the US Is Bailey 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 Bailey the strongest states are Wyoming, Vermont, Hawaii.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wyoming | #68 | 25 |
| 2 | Vermont | #69 | 19 |
| 3 | Hawaii | #96 | 84 |
| 4 | Louisiana | #97 | 424 |
| 5 | Mississippi | #104 | 227 |
| 6 | West Virginia | #107 | 151 |
| 7 | Alabama | #110 | 369 |
| 8 | Alaska | #111 | 43 |
| 9 | South Carolina | #111 | 347 |
| 10 | New Hampshire | #112 | 100 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Jersey | #331 | 230 |
| 2 | New York | #254 | 632 |
| 3 | Connecticut | #237 | 126 |
| 4 | Nevada | #231 | 124 |
| 5 | Illinois | #225 | 474 |
| 6 | Nebraska | #220 | 103 |
| 7 | Massachusetts | #219 | 242 |
| 8 | California | #214 | 1,582 |
| 9 | Utah | #201 | 197 |
| 10 | Minnesota | #198 | 266 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Bailey in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bayley | Courtyard Within Castle Walls: Steward Or Public Official. Surname Or Given Name. | Female | English |
Looking for names like Bailey?
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 Bailey to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Bailey against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
Bailey Baby Name Ideas
- Should You Use a Baby Name That Is Also Common for Pets? Testing the Association in Real Life
- Outer Banks-Inspired Baby Names: Pogues, Kooks & Coastal Carolina Picks
- Wicked-Inspired Baby Names: The Coinages, the Keepers, and the Real Names Hiding in Oz
- Denver-Inspired Baby Names: A Celebration of the Mile-High City
- Unique French Boy Names With Great Meanings
- 20 Super Cute Girl Names For Your Sweethearts
- Over 600 Sporty Boy Names Inspired By Soccer Players
- 68 Unisex Baby Names: 2025 Usage, Balance, and Practical Tradeoffs
- Names By State: Top 100 Baby Names In Alabama
- Top 1000 Most Popular Girl Names In U.S. Of 2015
- Top 100 North American Baby Names
- Baby Names Inspired By 100 Greatest Movie Characters
- 34 Energetic Names For Boys Or Girls With Tons Of Energy
- 20 Sporty Baby Names For American Football Fans
- Hundreds of Unique Destination Baby Names