Cailynn
Feminine · “pure”
Caitlin is Catherine, four languages deep. Greek gave Aikaterine, Latin gave Catharina, Norman French gave Cateline, and Irish took that and made Caitlin. The American respellings, Katelyn and Kaitlyn and Cailynn, have no idea they are spelling a Greek name.
How old is the name Cailynn?
Cailynn first appears in US birth records in 1990 — 35 years ago. The typical Cailynn alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 1,200 people named Cailynn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cailynn most popular?
Cailynn peaked in 2013, reaching #2626 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 3,920 places below that high. See the whole 2013 chart.
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Cailynn
The story of Cailynn
Irish took a great many Norman French names in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and made them thoroughly Irish; Caitlin, Sile, Eibhlin and Siobhan are all borrowings that stopped looking borrowed. When English-speaking parents rediscovered Caitlin in the 1970s they took it as an Irish name, which by then it was, and they spelled it by ear, producing Katelyn, Kaitlin, Caitlyn, Katelynn and Cailynn. Each step removes another letter that pointed backwards. Cailynn drops the t entirely, which is the last visible link to Catherine, and its best year in United States records is 2013.
Meaningscholars disagree
pure, by way of a medieval reinterpretation
The Greek Aikaterine has no recovered meaning; the sense pure comes from a medieval association with katharos and is a reinterpretation rather than a derivation. Caitlin is the Irish form of the Norman French Cateline, itself from Catharina. The -lynn ending of this spelling is a further English substitution and carries no meaning of its own.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Cateline
- Caitlin
- Cailynn
Related forms: Caitlin · Katelyn · Kaitlyn
Pronouncing Cailynn
KAY-lin
Two syllables with the stress on the first. The Irish Caitlin is properly KOYT-leen, which is a different name to the ear; the English reading has been standard for fifty years.
Nicknames for Cailynn
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1990
- Most girls named
- 200968 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2626reached in 2013
- Change vs 2024
- −34.6%17 in 2025, from 26
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Cailynn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caitlin in Irish — related form
- Katelyn in English — spelling variant
- Kaitlyn in English — spelling variant
Cailynns among us
people named Cailynn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Cailynn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cailynn
- #6546
- Cailynn on the 2025 chart
- #447
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cailynn went to 17 girls in 2025, but Kaylynn, Kaylin and Kailyn and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 12 spellings went to 616, which makes it the 447th most-given girls’ name of the year — 6,099 places above the chart.
and 4 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 2,609 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Cailynn itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Miguel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cailynn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Miguel climbed just as high around 1984, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Miguel's path sketches the road Cailynn is walking now.
Cailynn sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Cailynn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cailynn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Descends from one of the deepest name histories in Europe.
- Cait and Lynn are two short forms belonging to two different traditions.
- Soft, familiar and never mispronounced in English.
- Katelyn, Kaitlyn and Caitlin are all far more common.
- The Irish original is said quite differently from any English spelling.
- The -lynn ending dates it closely to the last two decades.
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What they receive
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Cailynn
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cailynns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Cailynn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cailynn?
- Cailynn is one of 8 recorded spellings. Kaylynn is the more common one — 134 births in 2025 against 17 for Cailynn.
- How popular is the name Cailynn in 2025?
- Cailynn ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cailynn?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Cailynn — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cailynn with classmates?
- Cailynn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cailynn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cailynn? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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