Kela
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Kela has been given to 901 babies in the U.S. since 1950. 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 1994, with 32 recorded.
Babies named Kela, 2016
1 in 459,000
Kela 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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.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 Kela?
Kela had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2016, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 2016
- 1 in 459,000
- 8 of 3,669,531 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 221,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 2016
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 317,942 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Kela sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2016 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 317,942 children born in 2016 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Kela. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Kelas were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Kela was born before 1987 — so the typical Kela is around 38 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1990s
- 26.5% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 38.6%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 901
- People you could plausibly meet
1990s — 26.5% of all recorded uses (239).
Is Kela 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 1994 (32)
- Years since peak
- 31
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Shifting
- 23.0% average annual change
Spellings of Kela
Kela is not the most common spelling — Kelly is, with 10.0% against Kela's 0.02%.
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 Kela is used
Across 1910–2025, Kela was most concentrated in Hawaii — about 1 in 33,333 girls, against 1 in 421,271 across all states with data. It was least common in Louisiana (1 in —).
Most concentrated
- 1Hawaii1 in 33,333
- 2California1 in —
- 3Louisiana1 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. Kela has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.
Kela around the world
Where Kela 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.
- France2004–2004#5,130in 2004
Popularity data from Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0.
Kela by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Kela
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Kela
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.