Humanverse

Kayden vs Kayla

American parents have registered 347,144 Kaylas since 1880, against 81,717 Kaydens. But in 2025 it was Kayden that was commoner, 2,735 babies to 838.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kayden against Kayla, 1880 to 2025 0 5k 10k 15k 20k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kayden Kayla

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 91 years in which either name was published, Kayla for 77 years and Kayden for 14 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kayden Kayla
Total US births 81,717347,144
Most in one year 5,13618,580
Babies in 2025 2,735838
Estimated living today 81,000341,000
Median age today 1029
Peak year 20141991
Best rank 90th boys12th girls
Rank in 2025 135th364th
First recorded 19891933
Girls / boys 8,111 / 73,606346,570 / 574

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 Kaylas alive today are over 29; half the Kaydens are over 10. That is 19 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 Kayden Kayla
England and Wales 8,5716,651
France 5,6404,370
Ireland 1,0102,609
Scotland 1,3102,215
New Zealand 1742,806
Northern Ireland 335586
Belgium 331498
Switzerland 137576
Poland 4136

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: Kayden and Kayla.