Humanverse

Kaeley vs Kaelyn

American parents have registered 15,648 Kaelyns since 1880, against 821 Kaeleys. Kaelyn is still ahead, with 131 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kaeley against Kaelyn, 1880 to 2025 0 300 600 900 1.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kaeley Kaelyn

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

Kaelyn has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1959 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1988, when Kaeley had 24 and Kaelyn had 73.

Side by side

  Kaeley Kaelyn
Total US births 82115,648
Most in one year 471,006
Babies in 2025 under 5131
Estimated living today 81015,000
Median age today 2317
Peak year 19982009
Best rank 2,798th girls331st girls
Rank in 2025 unranked1,592nd
First recorded 19851959
Girls / boys 821 / 015,566 / 82

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.

Which name is older

Half of the Kaeleys alive today are over 23; half the Kaelyns are over 17. That is 6 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

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

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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