Lay — boys' name

What the Data Says About Lay

The Social Security Administration has registered 28 babies named Lay between 1918 and 2016, spanning 99 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Lay currently falls outside the top 1,000 boys' names for 2016. The name reached its historical peak in 2016, when 7 babies received it in a single year. Lay is classified as unisex in SSA records: the opposite-sex variant accounts for 12 additional births since 2014.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Lay performed strongest in the 2010s, accumulating 12 births during that ten-year window. Across the 3 decades of recorded activity, Lay shows a stable profile with only moderate drift from its peak decade.

No etymological entry is currently available for Lay 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 28 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.