Kalayah
#1,617 in 2025Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Kalayah has been given to 1,442 babies in the U.S. since 1998. In 2025 it ranked #1,617 of 17,293 girls’ names in use. Its peak year was 2024, with 140 recorded.
Babies named Kalayah, 2025
1 in 25,700
Kalayah 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Kalayah?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 25,700
- 129 of 3,315,165 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 12,500
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2025
- #1,617
- of 17,293 girls’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 17,814 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Kalayah 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 17,814 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Kalayah. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Kalayahs were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Kalayah was born before 2020 — so the typical Kalayah is around 5 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2020s
- 50.2% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 98.9%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 1,442
- People you could plausibly meet
2020s — 50.2% of all recorded uses (724).
Is Kalayah 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
- −86
- Places dropped
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- +318
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- +1,791
- Places climbed
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 2.74×
- More babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 92.1%
- Peak was 2024 (140)
- Years since peak
- 1
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 23.8% average annual change
Spellings of Kalayah
Kalayah is not the most common spelling — Aaliyah is, with 33.9% against Kalayah's 0.44%.
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 Kalayah is used
Across 2016–2025, Kalayah was most concentrated in North Carolina — about 1 in 8,333 girls, against 1 in 19,345 across all states with data. It was least common in Pennsylvania (1 in 100,000).
Most concentrated
- 1North Carolina1 in 8,333
- 2Georgia1 in 10,000
- 3South Carolina1 in 10,000
- 4Alabama1 in 11,111
- 5Ohio1 in 11,111
- 6Florida1 in 14,286
- 7Michigan1 in 14,286
- 8Virginia1 in 20,000
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.
Kalayah around the world
Where Kalayah 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 & Wales2017–2025#2,138in 2025
- Canada2018–2024#2,710in 2024
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Kalayah by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Kalayah
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Kalayah
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.