Kelsey
Kelsey is a girl's name that peaked in 1992, when it was the 23rd most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 814th. About 152,000 Kelseys are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 31.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Kelsey boys named Kelsey
Girls and boys called Kelsey
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Kelsey crossed from boys to girls in 1972, and has stayed there for 54 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 99% girls, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 76 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 155,738
- Estimated living today
- 152,000
- Median age today
- 31
- Peak year
- 1992
- Best rank
- 23rd
- Rank in 2025
- 814th
- First recorded
- 1891
- Girls / boys
- 150,416 / 5,322
How old the living Kelseys are
born that year still alive today
Of the 155,738 babies given the name since 1891, about 152,000 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 16,000 of them are children and 360 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1994 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 a surname
From Old English cēol (“ship”) + siġe (“victory”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Kelseys
- Kelsey Grammer (born 1955)American actor
- Kelsey Asbille (born 1991)American actress
- Kelsey-Lee Barber (born 1991)Australian javelin thrower
- Kelsey Plum (born 1994)American basketball player
- Kelsey Mitchell (born 1993)Canadian track cyclist
- Kelsey Serwa (born 1989)Canadian freestyle skier
- Kelsey Robinson (born 1992)American volleyball player and beach volleyball player
- Kelsey Bevan (born 1990)New Zealand rower
People named Kelsey with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Kelsey is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Kelsey is most concentrated in Alaska (2.4×), Oregon (1.8×), Washington (1.7×), Wyoming (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1992
The most popular girls’ names the year Kelsey peaked:
Kelsey elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Kelsey | 7,246 | 87th |
| Scotland girls | Kelsey | 1,400 | 66th |
| Ireland girls | Kelsey | 776 | 121st |
| New Zealand girls | Kelsey | 718 | 48th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Kelsey | 239 | 114th |
| Belgium girls | Kelsey | 235 | 244th |
| England and Wales boys | Kelsey | 224 | 563rd |
| France girls | Kelsey | 190 | 1,637th |
| Scotland boys | Kelsey | 4 | 359th |
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.
Kelsey: rank by region
In 2010, Kelsey was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Kelsey | 772 | 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.
Kelsey 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 | Kelsey | 7 | 7 |
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
Kelsey against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
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.