Humanverse

Kaleb vs Kalli

American parents have registered 86,851 Kalebs since 1880, against 5,317 Kallis. Kaleb is still ahead, with 1,143 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Kaleb Kalli

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 67 years in which either name was published, Kaleb for 52 years and Kalli for 15 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kaleb Kalli
Total US births 86,8515,317
Most in one year 3,829259
Babies in 2025 1,14356
Estimated living today 85,0005,200
Median age today 1822
Peak year 20072007
Best rank 113th boys1,019th girls
Rank in 2025 295th2,957th
First recorded 19701952
Girls / boys 202 / 86,6495,317 / 0

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 Kallis alive today are over 22; half the Kalebs are over 18. That is 4 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 Kaleb Kalli
England and Wales 2,724107
Scotland 42612

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 Kalli.