Charley
A diminutive form of the masculine name Charles, meaning "free man".
Name Census estimates that about 17,711 living Americans carry the first name Charley. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 68.5% of registrations being male. The average person named Charley today is around 30 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Charley births was 2014 (719 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Charley. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Charley with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Charley started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
People living today
18K
~ 1 in 19,353 Americans
Peak year
2014
719 babies that year
Average age
30
years old
2024 SSA rank
#729
Tracked since 1880
Census
Charley in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 14,043 people with the first name Charley, which placed it at #1,974 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#1,974
National first-name rank
People counted
14K
14,043 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
73.8% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Charley
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Charley is White at 73.8%. The next largest groups are Black (8.8%) and Hispanic (7.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Charley described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Charley at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White73.8% · 10,363
- Black or African American8.8% · 1,242
- Hispanic or Latino7.6% · 1,063
- Two or more races5.1% · 716
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.9% · 405
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.8% · 254
Gender
Gender distribution for Charley
Charley is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 34,872 total registrations, 23,885 (68.5%) were male and 10,987 (31.5%) were female.
Charley as a male name
- Ranked #1,830 in 2024
- 88 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1920 (485 births)
Charley as a female name
- Ranked #729 in 2024
- 385 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2014 (641 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Charley on both sides of the split. Of the 14,039 people counted with this name, 6,362 were male (45.3%) and 7,677 were female (54.7%).
Popularity
Charley: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Charley from the 1880s through to the 2020s, spanning 15 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 6,233 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Charley remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Charley by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Charley during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Charleys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 44 states and territories. Texas, Oklahoma, California recorded the most babies named Charley, while New Hampshire, North Dakota, Maine recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 488 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Charley
Charley is an English masculine given name derived from the Old English name Charles, which originated from the Germanic name Karl, meaning "free man" or "manly". The name Charles can be traced back to the 8th century and was popularized by Charlemagne, the King of the Franks and the first Holy Roman Emperor.
The name Charley emerged as a diminutive or nickname for Charles, with the earliest recorded instances dating back to the 16th century. It gained widespread use in the 18th and 19th centuries, particularly in England and the United States.
One of the earliest recorded uses of the name Charley can be found in the works of William Shakespeare, where it appears as a character in the play "Henry IV, Part 2" (1597-1599). In this play, Shakespeare introduces a character named "Charley's Aunt," which later inspired the popular farce "Charley's Aunt" by Brandon Thomas in 1892.
Throughout history, several notable individuals have borne the name Charley. One of the most famous was Charley Parkhurst (1812-1879), an American stagecoach driver and one of the first women to work as a stagecoach driver in the American West. Parkhurst's true gender was only revealed after her death.
Another prominent figure was Charley Patton (1891-1934), an American Delta blues musician who is considered one of the most influential figures in the development of the blues genre. Patton's music and style had a significant impact on later blues artists, including Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.
In the world of literature, Charley Chaplin (1889-1977) was the stage name of the iconic English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer, known for his iconic "Little Tramp" character and pioneering work in the early days of cinema.
Charley Boorman (born 1966) is a British actor, television presenter, and author, best known for his adventure travel documentaries, including "Long Way Round" and "Long Way Down," which he co-hosted with his friend and fellow actor Ewan McGregor.
Finally, Charley Pride (1934-2020) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was one of the first African American artists to achieve significant commercial success in the country music genre, with hits such as "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'" and "Is Anybody Goin' to San Antone."
Notable bearers
Famous people named Charley
People
Charley + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Charley as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Charley: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Charley?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 17,711 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Charley going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 19,353 US residents.
Is Charley a common name?
We classify Charley as "Uncommon". It ranks above 98.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 34,872 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Charley most popular?
The single biggest year for Charley was 2014, when 719 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Charley is about 30 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Charley in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 14,043 people with the name Charley, or 4.65 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #1,974 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Charley in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Charley?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Charley on both sides of the split. Of the 14,039 people counted with this name, 6,362 were male (45.3%) and 7,677 were female (54.7%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Charley?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Charley is White at 73.8%. The next largest groups are Black (8.8%) and Hispanic (7.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Charley most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Charley in the 2020 Census, accounting for 73.8% (10,363 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Charley in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Charley a male name?
Yes, 68.5% of people registered as Charley in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Charley still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Charley in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Charley can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How common is the name Charley?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.