Humanverse

Kaylani vs Kayleigh

American parents have registered 34,568 Kayleighs since 1880, against 11,877 Kaylanis. But in 2025 it was Kaylani that was commoner, 1,675 babies to 340.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kaylani against Kayleigh, 1880 to 2025 0 500 1k 1.5k 2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kaylani Kayleigh

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 42 years in which either name was published, Kayleigh for 35 years and Kaylani for 7 years. The lead changed hands once.

Side by side

  Kaylani Kayleigh
Total US births 11,87734,568
Most in one year 1,6751,450
Babies in 2025 1,675340
Estimated living today 12,00034,000
Median age today 418
Peak year 20252009
Best rank 185th girls227th girls
Rank in 2025 185th799th
First recorded 19871984
Girls / boys 11,877 / 034,561 / 7

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 Kayleighs alive today are over 18; half the Kaylanis are over 4. That is 14 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 Kaylani Kayleigh
England and Wales 3310,695
France 2015

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: Kaylani and Kayleigh.