Humanverse

Kaia vs Kaitlyn

American parents have registered 166,921 Kaitlyns since 1880, against 20,967 Kaias. But in 2025 it was Kaia that was commoner, 1,623 babies to 340.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kaia against Kaitlyn, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kaia Kaitlyn

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

Of the 65 years in which either name was published, Kaitlyn for 38 years and Kaia for 27 years. The lead changed hands 2 times.

Side by side

  Kaia Kaitlyn
Total US births 20,967166,921
Most in one year 1,6808,771
Babies in 2025 1,623340
Estimated living today 21,000165,000
Median age today 725
Peak year 20242000
Best rank 180th girls30th girls
Rank in 2025 193rd799th
First recorded 19551971
Girls / boys 20,909 / 58166,689 / 232

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 Kaitlyns alive today are over 25; half the Kaias are over 7. That is 18 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.

Both names abroad

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

Country Kaia Kaitlyn
England and Wales 1,7165,160
Scotland 133960
Ireland 267488
New Zealand 217358
Northern Ireland 71271
France 140 Kaïa175
Belgium 2428

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: Kaia and Kaitlyn.