The boys' number one that is not Liam

Liam is the most popular boys' name in America. In 2017, the most recent full file we hold, it went to 18,728 boys. That is the official list, and the official list counts spellings.

Jackson was 20th, with 10,356 boys. Jaxon was 43rd, with 7,649. Jaxson was 79th, with 4,820. They are the same name said the same way, and together they are 22,825. Add the sixteen smaller spellings in the file, Jaxen and Jaxxon down to Jaksyn, and it is 23,882. One American boy in every 77 born that year was given a name that is said Jackson. One in 98 was given Liam.

We did this sum for the girls and Olivia came out third. So here are the boys, both countries, every name near the top re-ranked by sound. America has a new number one. Britain barely moves, and the reason it barely moves is the more interesting half.

How we counted

The rule is the one we used for the girls. A spelling counts when it is the same name said the same way, and only the letters differ. Greyson is Grayson. Lukas is Lucas. Ruben is Reuben. Every spelling we added is listed under the tables, with its count, so you can check the working.

Where two spellings are said differently we kept them apart, even when they look close. Adan and Aydin are not Aiden, the same rule as in the spelling wars. Jakub is not Jacob. Nicolas is not Nicholas. Louis is said two ways in Britain, so it is kept apart from Louie, and we come back to that below. Hyphenated names are their own names and are never added to anything. Where it was a judgement call we left the spelling out. We would rather undercount than guess.

America, by sound

Jackson first, Liam second. Then Aiden and Noah, 18,471 to 18,404, which is 67 boys apart and closer than our rule can measure, so call them level. Jackson itself is only 43% of its own name. Jaxon on its own would be a top-50 name and Jaxson a top-80 name, and neither of them is a different name from the one at 20th.

Here is the top 20, counted by sound. The shaded rows are names that are not in the official top 20.

Spellings counted, the larger ones: Jackson: Jackson 10,356, Jaxon 7,649, Jaxson 4,820, Jaxen 327, Jaxxon 259, Jaxsen 111, Jaxyn 89, Jaxsyn 64, Jaxin 50 and ten spellings under 30. Aiden: Aiden 11,259, Ayden 3,931, Aidan 1,718, Aden 578, Aaden 240, Aydan 171, Aidyn 158, Aedan 143, Aayden 94 and thirteen smaller. Grayson: Grayson 8,640, Greyson 4,819, Graysen 306, Greysen 215, Gracen 82 and fifteen smaller. Kayden: Kayden 3,969, Kaiden 2,800, Kaden 1,840, Caden 1,700, Cayden 1,525, Caiden 1,038, Kaeden 180, Kyden 101, Kaidyn 100, Kadyn 93 and 29 smaller. Jayden: Jayden 9,495, Jaden 1,627, Jaiden 1,135, Jadon 160, Jaydon 145, Jaidyn 122 and eighteen smaller. Lucas: Lucas 12,951, Lukas 1,723 and six smaller. Mason: Mason 13,502, Mayson 252, Maison 249, Masen 101 and eight smaller. Alexander: Alexander 12,467, Alexzander 226, Aleksander 153 and seven smaller. Matthew: Matthew 11,611, Mathew 499, Mathieu 36, Matthieu 18. Jacob: Jacob 13,106, Jakob 400, Jaycob 140, Jaykob 30, Jaccob 9. Michael: Michael 12,579, Micheal 241, Mychal 13, Mychael 9. Liam: Liam 18,728, Lyam 125 and seven smaller. The rest add fewer than 200 to their main spelling.

Three names drop out and three come in. Daniel, Henry and Joseph, 15th, 18th and 19th on the official list, are pushed to 22nd, 23rd and 24th. None of them lost a boy. In their place come Grayson, 34th on paper and seventh by sound, Kayden, 98th and 11th, and Jayden, 26th and 16th. And Jackson goes from 20th to first.

Grayson is the clean case. Two spellings, near enough, and the second one is more than half the size of the first: Greyson was 80th on its own, with 4,819 boys. Together they are 14,311, which is more than James. Lucas is the quiet one: 11th on paper, sixth by sound, because Lukas adds 1,723 and nobody thinks of it as a rival. Carter just misses. Karter adds 2,273 and lifts it from 24th to 21st.

Kayden is the extreme case, and we said so in the spelling wars: 39 spellings, the best of them 98th, and Kayden itself is 28% of its own name. There we put it sixth, against the official list. Here it is 11th, and the difference is the point. Once you count every name by sound, five of the ten names above it are respelled names too. Kayden only looks like the champion of respelling when everyone else is counted the old way.

What has happened since

2017 is the most recent year we hold full counts for, but the rankings run to 2025, and they say something. Every spelling of every name that climbed above has fallen since. Jackson was 20th in 2017 and is 36th now. Jaxon went from 43rd to 115th. Jaxson from 79th to 156th. Grayson from 34th to 51st, Greyson from 80th to 149th. Aiden from 17th to 62nd, Ayden from 99th to 257th. Kayden from 98th to 135th. Jayden from 26th to 70th. Liam was first in 2017 and has been first every year since.

We cannot add up spellings without counts, so we cannot tell you whether Jackson is still number one by sound. We can tell you that the names American parents respell are the names American parents are moving away from, all of them at once, and that the ones they are not respelling are the ones holding their place. The exception is Lucas, 11th then and 10th now, while Lukas slipped from 220th to 288th.

Further down the list

The biggest splits are not at the top. They are the names of the last century that came with two accepted spellings, and the two are still running level. Bryan went to 1,827 boys in 2017 and Brian to 1,763, 210th and 217th; together they would be 111th. Steven 2,148 and Stephen 1,321, 182nd and 271st, together 115th. Eric 2,757, Erick 1,428 and Erik 895, together 74th rather than 143rd. Sean, Shawn and Shaun, 251st on the best spelling and 153rd together. If you are choosing between Steven and Stephen because one of them feels rarer, it does not.

The new names are doing the same thing. Jace was 87th, with 4,621 boys. Jayce was 139th and Jase 325th, and the three of them together are 8,548, which is 35th. Caleb and Kaleb are 50th and 30th. Connor, Conor and Conner are 56th and 35th. Mateo and Matteo are 42nd and 24th.

England and Wales, by sound

Muhammad is first either way. It was first on the official list with 5,957 boys, and we counted its eleven spellings in the Muhammad question: 9,263, one boy in 30. Noah is second either way. After that the British list does something the American one does not. It stays put.

Spellings counted: Muhammad: Muhammad 5,957, Mohammed 1,712, Mohammad 895, Muhammed 385, Mohamed 240, Mohamad 43, Muhamad 13, Mahamed 9, Mahammad 3, Mohammod 3, Muhamed 3. Noah: Noah 4,075, Noa 54. Luca: Luca 3,266, Luka 177, Lucca 39, Lucah 7, Lukka 4, Louka 4. Leo: Leo 3,278, Lio 9. Oscar: Oscar 2,798, Oskar 121. Theodore: Theodore 2,638, Theodor 63. Freddie: Freddie 2,526, Freddy 135, Ffredi 11, Freddi 4. Henry: Henry 2,295, Henri 32. Finley: Finley 1,733, Finlay 293, Finnley 79, Fynnley 5, Finnlay 4, Finlee 4, Fynley 3. Arlo: Arlo 2,083, Arlow 7, Arlowe 4, Arloe 4. Reuben: Reuben 1,412, Ruben 527, Rueben 107, Rubin 5. Alfie: Alfie 1,955, Alffi 6, Alfi 5, Alphie 3. Harry: Harry 1,718, Harri 100, Harrie 3. Albie: Albie 1,702, Albi 64, Alby 35, Albee 6, Albey 4. Arthur, Oliver, George, Archie, Theo and Jude have one spelling each.

One name drops out and one comes in. Mohammed, 20th on the official list, is folded into Muhammad. In its place comes Reuben, 29th on paper and 17th by sound, because Ruben is a top-100 name on its own with 527 boys and Rueben adds 107. Reuben keeps only 69% of its own name, the lowest share in the British top 20 apart from Muhammad.

That is the whole of it. Finley climbs from 18th to 15th on the strength of Finlay, 293 boys. Luca passes Leo for third, 3,497 to 3,287, because of Luka. And Rory is pushed from 17th to 21st without losing a boy, which is the price of having one spelling in a list where other names have several. Everything else sits within a place or two of where the official list put it.

Then there is Louie. On the official list Louie is 28th, with 1,418 boys, and Louis is 49th, with 1,030. If Louis is said the French way, they are one name, 2,475 boys, 11th, above Archie. We left it out because Louis is also said with the s, and the ONS cannot tell us which way each family says it. It is the one judgement call that would change the British top 20, so you should know it is there.

Britain does have a Jaxon. It is just small, and it is spelled the other way round. In England and Wales in 2025 Jaxon went to 605 boys and Jackson to 372, with Jaxson on 226. Together, with Jaxxon and Jaxen, they are 1,217, which would be 42nd. In America the ck spelling leads. Here the x does. And two names further down are split nearly in half: Elliot 544 and Elliott 418, 94th on the best spelling and 51st together, and Yusuf, 64th with 798 boys, 46th with its ten other spellings.

Boys against girls

Put this next to the girls' list. In Britain's top 20 girls' names by sound, six had a main spelling with less than 90% of the total. In the boys' top 20 it is three: Muhammad, Finley and Reuben. In America it was eleven for the girls and it is six for the boys. The typical British boys' name on the list keeps 99% of its babies under one spelling and the typical American one 97%, against 95% and 86% for the girls.

Parents in both countries respell a daughter's name about twice as often as a son's. The data does not say why. What it does say is that the boys' names that are respelled are a particular kind: Jackson, Grayson, Kayden, Jayden, Aiden, Finley, Reuben, all of them names that end in a sound that can be written more than one way. The classics are left alone. Nobody respells William, Arthur, George or Oliver, and those are the names holding their places in both countries.

What it means for you

If you are in America and Liam feels too popular, more boys answer to Jackson, Jaxon and Jaxson than to Liam, and the gap is five thousand a year. If you have picked Greyson over Grayson to be different, the classroom will hear the same name and there are 4,819 of you. And if you are in Britain and worried about spellings, you mostly need not be. Outside Muhammad, Finley and Reuben, the top 20 is what it says it is.

Liam is number one on paper, and it is the honest number one for what the records count. In 2017 it was not the name most American boys were called.