Wiley

Where Wiley comes from

Wiley hasn't made it into the dictionaries we draw on, and nobody well known enough for an encyclopedia has carried it yet — so for now its story is the one the SSA record tells. Names that spell a familiar sound a new way often live here for a while before anyone writes them down.

  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1880
    First SSA year
    Already #168 among boys — 78 babies in the first year on record.
  2. 1882
    Peak, #148
    92 babies named Wiley — more than any year before or since.
  3. 1894
    Wiley Rutledge born
    American Supreme Court justice
  4. 1898
    Wiley Post born
    American aviator; first pilot to fly solo around the world
  5. 1906
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #302.
In the dictionary

No dictionary entry for this spelling — which is its own kind of rare.

Namesakes
  • Wiley Post · American aviator; first pilot to fly solo around the world, 1898–1935
  • Wiley Rutledge · American Supreme Court justice, 1894–1949
  • Wiley Wiggins · American actor, born 1976
  • Wiley Maple · American alpine skier, born 1990
  • Wiley Mayne · American politician, 1917–2007

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.