Jay — #396 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Jay

The Social Security Administration has registered 194,725 babies named Jay between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Jay currently holds the #396 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1960, when 5,383 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Jay performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 42,712 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Jay shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 15,914 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by New York and Pennsylvania. In total, SSA state-level files list Jay in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Jay in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 194,725 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.