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Payal

Girls' name

Literal meaning not recorded; Sanskrit origin

Payal has been given to 674 babies in the U.S. since 1975. 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 1981, with 34 recorded.

Babies named Payal, 2015

1 in 740,000

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Payal: meaning, origin, and history

Literal meaning not recorded; Sanskrit origin

Sanskrit

What Payal means

Payal is a given name.

Origin, language, and formation

Payal is used in English. Its origins include Sanskrit.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 674 girls were recorded with the name Payal between 1975 and 2015. Its highest annual count was 34 in 1981; its best national rank was #2,704 in 1981.

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.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Payal?

Payal had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2015, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2015
1 in 740,000
5 of 3,701,574 births
Among girls only
1 in 357,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2015
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
513,148 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Payal 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 2015 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 513,148 children born in 2015 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Payal. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Payals were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Payal was born before 1990 — so the typical Payal is around 35 today.

Median birth year
1990
About 35 years old
Biggest decade
1980s
40.2% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
47.2%
Spread across generations
Recorded since 1950
674
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1980s — 40.2% of all recorded uses (271).

Is Payal 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 1981 (34)
Years since peak
44
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
26.2% average annual change
Best rank ever
#2,704
1981

Spellings of Payal

Payal is not the most common spelling — Maya is, with 53.6% against Payal's 0.29%.

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 Payal is used

Across 1910–2025, Payal was most concentrated in New Jersey — about 1 in 50,000 girls, against 1 in 252,850 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

02 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New Jersey1 in 50,000
  2. 2California1 in —
  3. 3Illinois1 in —
  4. 4New York1 in —
  5. 5Pennsylvania1 in —
  6. 6Texas1 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. Payal has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Payal around the world

Where Payal 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
    1996–2013
    #5,742
    in 2013
  • Canada
    1993–2006
    #2,939
    in 2006
  • South Australia
    1978–1978
    #626
    in 1978

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.

Payal 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
#2,704
1981
Peak year
1981
34 that year
First recorded
1975
Last recorded
2015
All-time count
674
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Payal

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

PaydenPaysonLayalLoyalPaygePaysenPaysleePaytinPaytynPaytenKayalRoyalPaysleyPaytanFaryalPaylinPayzleePaynePaytnPayslieAroyalDanyalPaycenPaylen

Sibling names for Payal

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 Payal

Top names of 1981, Payal's peak yearThe 1980s in fullOther names that peaked in 1981Girls' names starting with P