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Caitlin vs Kaitlin

American parents have registered 112,426 Caitlins since 1880, against 57,430 Kaitlins. Caitlin is still ahead, with 78 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Caitlin against Kaitlin, 1880 to 2025 0 2k 4k 6k 8k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Caitlin Kaitlin

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Caitlin has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1955 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1995, when Caitlin had 4,397 and Kaitlin had 3,612.

Side by side

  Caitlin Kaitlin
Total US births 112,42657,430
Most in one year 7,2743,612
Babies in 2025 7835
Estimated living today 110,00056,000
Median age today 3231
Peak year 19881995
Best rank 44th girls94th girls
Rank in 2025 2,326th4,067th
First recorded 19551971
Girls / boys 112,143 / 28357,355 / 75

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Caitlin Kaitlin
England and Wales 28,9642,986
Scotland 6,986607
New Zealand 3,37045
Ireland 2,884242
Northern Ireland 2,909163
France 39040

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Caitlin and Kaitlin.