Humanverse

Kaleb vs Kaleel

American parents have registered 86,851 Kalebs since 1880, against 555 Kaleels. Kaleb is still ahead, with 1,143 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kaleb against Kaleel, 1880 to 2025 0 1k 2k 3k 4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kaleb Kaleel

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

Kaleb has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1970 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1995, when Kaleb had 1,435 and Kaleel had 29.

Side by side

  Kaleb Kaleel
Total US births 86,851555
Most in one year 3,82930
Babies in 2025 1,14313
Estimated living today 85,000550
Median age today 1820
Peak year 20071997
Best rank 113th boys2,613th boys
Rank in 2025 295th6,446th
First recorded 19701992
Girls / boys 202 / 86,6490 / 555

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 Kaleels alive today are over 20; half the Kalebs are over 18. That is 2 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Both names abroad

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

Country Kaleb Kaleel
England and Wales 2,72415

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: Kaleb and Kaleel.