Caliph
#12,347 in 2025Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Caliph has been given to 207 babies in the U.S. since 1972. In 2025 it ranked #12,347 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 1974, with 13 recorded.
Babies named Caliph, 2025
1 in 663,000
Caliph over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Caliph?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 663,000
- 5 of 3,315,165 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 342,000
- <0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2025
- #12,347
- of 13,926 boys’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 459,581 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Caliph sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 459,581 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Caliph. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Caliphs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Caliph was born before 1997 — so the typical Caliph is around 28 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1970s
- 26.1% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 39.1%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 207
- People you could plausibly meet
1970s — 26.1% of all recorded uses (54).
Is Caliph 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
- 38.5%
- Peak was 1974 (13)
- Years since peak
- 51
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 35.5% average annual change
Spellings of Caliph
Caliph is not the most common spelling — Ralph is, with 99.2% against Caliph's 0.05%.
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 Caliph is used
Across 1910–2025, Caliph was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in — boys, against 1 in 1,665,480 across all states with data.
Most concentrated
- 1New York1 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. Caliph has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Caliph around the world
Where Caliph ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2024–2024#4,271in 2024
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0.
Caliph by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Caliph
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Caliph
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.