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Caillou

Boys' name

Literal meaning not recorded; French origin

Caillou has been given to 252 babies in the U.S. since 2001. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 2001, with 35 recorded.

Babies named Caillou, 2019

1 in 694,000

Caillou over time, 1880–2025

Boys
01020304018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Caillou: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded; French origin

French

What Caillou means

Caillou is a given name.

Dictionary etymologyReferences, data & attribution

From French; see caillou. Nickname of the eponymous boy of the Canadian book and TV series Caillou.

Excerpt from Wiktionary: Caillou (English) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin, language, and formation

Caillou is used in English. Its origins include French.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Caillou is pronounced /kaɪ.ju/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 252 boys were recorded with the name Caillou between 2001 and 2019. Its highest annual count was 35 in 2001; its best national rank was #2,685 in 2001.

How common is Caillou?

Caillou had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2019, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2019
1 in 694,000
5 of 3,472,229 births
Among boys only
1 in 359,000
<0.01% of boys
Rank, 2019
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
481,354 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Caillou sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Liam (20,818)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2019 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 481,354 children born in 2019 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Caillou. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Caillous were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Caillou was born before 2006 — so the typical Caillou is around 19 today.

Median birth year
2006
About 19 years old
Biggest decade
2000s
73.0% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
100.0%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
252
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

2000s — 73.0% of all recorded uses (184).

Is Caillou rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 2001 (35)
Years since peak
24
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
36.5% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,685
2001

Spellings of Caillou

Caillou is not the most common spelling — Camillo is, with 78.7% against Caillou's 21.3%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Caillou is used

Across 1910–2025, Caillou was most concentrated in California — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,279,007 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

00 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1California1 in —
  2. 2Texas1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Caillou has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Caillou by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a boy's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#2,685
2001
Peak year
2001
35 that year
First recorded
2001
Last recorded
2019
All-time count
252
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Caillou

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

CailenCaisynCaidanCaitlinCaisenCainenCaidynCailebCainanCaidonCaisonCaideCailanCaidenceCaileanFallouCaizenCaidinCainonCaigeCaimanCaironCaitlynCaio

Sibling names for Caillou

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Caillou

Top names of 2001, Caillou's peak yearThe 2000s in fullOther names that peaked in 2001Boys' names starting with C