Humanverse

Kali vs Kalisa

American parents have registered 33,438 Kalis since 1880, against 509 Kalisas. Kali is still ahead, with 972 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kali against Kalisa, 1880 to 2025 0 400 800 1.2k 1.6k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kali Kalisa

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

Kali has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1957 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1962, when Kali had 7 and Kalisa had 6.

Side by side

  Kali Kalisa
Total US births 33,438509
Most in one year 1,35320
Babies in 2025 97215
Estimated living today 33,000500
Median age today 1522
Peak year 20192007
Best rank 241st girls6,552nd girls
Rank in 2025 323rd7,133rd
First recorded 19571962
Girls / boys 32,527 / 911509 / 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 Kalisas alive today are over 22; half the Kalis are over 15. That is 7 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 Kali Kalisa
England and Wales 64411

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: Kali and Kalisa.