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Kajal

Girls' name

Kohl, collyrium

Kajal has been given to 369 babies in the U.S. since 1978. 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 1996, with 36 recorded.

Babies named Kajal, 2009

1 in 546,000

Kajal over time, 1880–2025

Girls
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Kajal: meaning, origin, and history

Kohl, collyrium

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Kajal means

Kajal means “kohl, collyrium”.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Kajal is used in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali and Gujarati.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 369 girls were recorded with the name Kajal between 1978 and 2009. Its highest annual count was 36 in 1996; its best national rank was #3,260 in 1996.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

How common is Kajal?

Kajal had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2009, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2009
1 in 546,000
7 of 3,820,315 births
Among girls only
1 in 262,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2009
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
378,293 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Kajal sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2009 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 378,293 children born in 2009 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Kajal. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Kajals were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Kajal was born before 1996 — so the typical Kajal is around 29 today.

Median birth year
1996
About 29 years old
Biggest decade
1990s
55.8% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
87.3%
A modern name
Recorded since 1950
369
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1990s — 55.8% of all recorded uses (206).

Is Kajal 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 1996 (36)
Years since peak
29
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
35.1% average annual change
Best rank ever
#3,260
1996

Spellings of Kajal

Kajal is not the most common spelling — Kara is, with 49.5% against Kajal's 0.18%.

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 Kajal is used

Across 1910–2025, Kajal was most concentrated in New Jersey — about 1 in 100,000 girls, against 1 in 649,316 across all states with data. It was least common in New York (1 in —).

01 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New Jersey1 in 100,000
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4New York1 in —

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls 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. Kajal has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Kajal around the world

Where Kajal 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 & Wales
    1996–2009
    #3,031
    in 2009
  • Canada
    1993–2003
    #2,346
    in 2003
  • South Australia
    1982–1982
    #670
    in 1982

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Kajal by the numbers

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

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#3,260
1996
Peak year
1996
36 that year
First recorded
1978
Last recorded
2009
All-time count
369
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Kajal

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

KajsaKajaSejalTejalKajahKajolBijalKajuanaKinjalKajiaKajunKajiraKenjalPranjalKajsiabKaajal

Sibling names for Kajal

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 Kajal

Top names of 1996, Kajal's peak yearThe 1990s in fullOther names that peaked in 1996Girls' names starting with K