Cairo
Masculine · “the victorious”
Cairo is given to both — 9,415 boys and 584 girls since 1880. See Cairo as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Cairo is a city name with a meaning behind it: when the Fatimids founded their new capital on the Nile in the tenth century, they called it al-Qāhira, the victorious. English took the word through Italian, softening it to two open syllables that end on a vowel. It has been a familiar word on maps and in headlines for a thousand years, and only recently began being handed to children.
How old is the name Cairo?
Cairo first appears in US birth records in 1979 — 46 years ago. The typical Cairo is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 9,400 people named Cairo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cairo most popular?
Cairo peaked in 2022, reaching #306 nationally. Today it ranks #341, 35 places below that high. See the whole 2022 chart.
Cairo appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From al-Qāhir to Cairo
The story of Cairo
The city was established in the tenth century by the Fatimid dynasty as a royal capital beside older settlements on the Nile, and named al-Qāhira. European merchants and travelers carried the word home, and it reached English through Italian as Cairo — which is why the English form looks nothing like the Arabic. In the United States the spelling took a second life as a town name, notably in southern Illinois and in Georgia, both of which say it KAY-roh. Its use as a given name for boys is a much later development, and one that has grown in a slow, unbroken line rather than a spike.
Meaning
the victorious, the vanquisher
From Arabic al-Qāhira, the feminine form of al-Qāhir, 'the conqueror' — a name applied to the planet Mars in medieval Arabic astronomy and given to the new Fatimid capital at its founding.
How the name formed
- al-Qāhir
- al-Qāhira
- CairoItalian
- Cairo
Related forms: القاهرة (al-Qāhira) · Cairo · El Cairo · Le Caire · Kahire · Kairo
Pronouncing Cairo
KYE-roh
American English says the Egyptian capital KYE-roh, and that is the standard reading of the name. The Illinois and Georgia towns of the same spelling are pronounced KAY-roh, so an occasional correction is part of the deal.
Nicknames for Cairo
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
- 1979
- Most boys named
- 20221,101 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #306reached in 2022
- Change vs 2024
- +1.7%965 in 2025, from 949
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.
Cairo in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- القاهرة (al-Qāhira) in Arabic — transliteration
- Cairo in Italian — same name
- El Cairo in Spanish — related form
- Le Caire in French — related form
- Kahire in Turkish — related form
- Kairo in German — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Cairos among us
people named Cairo are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 1,770 born in 2025 was named Cairo
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cairo
- #341
- Cairo on the 2025 chart
- #141
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cairo went to 965 boys in 2025, but Kairo, Kairoh and Khairo are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 2,623, which makes it the 141st most-given boys’ name of the year — 200 places above the chart.
- Kairo1,577
- Cairo965
- Kairoh33
- Khairo31
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 boy in 651 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,770 for Cairo 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 Zachariah test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cairo's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Zachariah climbed just as high around 1992, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Zachariah's path sketches the road Cairo is walking now.
Cairo 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
Where Cairo is headed
Cairo should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Cairo beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cairo in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The spelling needs no explanation — it is a world capital, so people who have never met the name still know how to write it.
- A documented meaning that goes back to the city's tenth-century founding: 'the victorious'.
- Two syllables, ending on an open vowel, which sits easily beside most one-syllable surnames.
- Recognized in dozens of languages, even where the local form differs — Kairo, Kahire, Le Caire.
- It is still first and foremost a city, so expect the occasional question about whether there is a family connection to Egypt, and the occasional assumption that there is.
- Two live pronunciations exist in American English — KYE-roh for the capital, KAY-roh for the towns in Illinois and Georgia. Most people default to the first, but not all.
- The wave of children with this name is very new, so a boy named Cairo will meet few older namesakes and, in most schools, no classmate sharing it.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Cairo
Masculine · #341 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cairos are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,400 people named Cairo are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cairo?
- Cairo is one of 4 recorded spellings. Kairo is the more common one — 1,577 births in 2025 against 965 for Cairo.
- How popular is the name Cairo in 2025?
- Cairo ranks #341 among US boy names in 2025, with 965 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cairo?
- About 1 in every 1,770 US boys born in 2025 was named Cairo — 965 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cairo with classmates?
- Cairo will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cairo
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jax#342 · Marshall#340 · Colin#343 · Brian#339 · Paxton#338 · Wade#344 · Gideon#337 · Wells#345
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cairo? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cairo and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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