Humanverse

Caitlyn

Caitlyn is a girl's name that peaked in 1998, when it was the 115th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 2,485th. About 52,000 Caitlyns are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 26.

Popularity, 1880–2025

Births per year, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

girls named Caitlyn boys named Caitlyn

By the numbers

Total US births
52,637
Estimated living today
52,000
Median age today
26
Peak year
1998
Best rank
115th
Rank in 2025
2,485th
First recorded
1968
Girls / boys
52,603 / 34

How old the living Caitlyns are

Born with the name each year, and how many of them are alive today, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

born that year still alive today

Of the 52,637 babies given the name since 1968, about 52,000 are alive — 99 in every hundred. Roughly 9,000 of them are children and 0 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1999 and half after.

An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.

Where the name comes from

Origin Irish

Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Notable Caitlyns

People named Caitlyn with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).

Where Caitlyn is most common

Relative to how many babies each state records, Caitlyn is most concentrated in Delaware (1.9×), New Hampshire (1.8×), Nevada (1.6×), Florida (1.5×).

Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.

Names of 1998

The most popular girls’ names the year Caitlyn peaked:

All the names of 1998

Caitlyn elsewhere

CountrySpelling BirthsBest rank
England and Wales girls Caitlyn 5,333 144th
Scotland girls Caitlyn 1,189 62nd
New Zealand girls Caitlyn 454 66th
Ireland girls Caitlyn 246 232nd
Northern Ireland girls Caitlyn 223 97th
France girls Caitlyn 160 2,334th
Belgium girls Caitlyn 104 891st

Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.

Caitlyn: rank by region

In 2025, Caitlyn was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.

Region Spelling Place Children
Flanders Caitlyn 753 6

Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.

Caitlyn by city

CityYears BirthsBest rank
Berlin girls 2017–2023 3 499th

One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.

Caitlyn among the living

How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.

Country Spelling First forename Any forename
Finland girls Caitlyn 6 10

A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.

Related names

Caitlyn against another name

Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.

Compare Caitlyn with a name of your own

Try it on yourself

Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.