Caitlin
Feminine · “pure”
Caitlin is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 112,143 girls against 283 boys since 1880.
Caitlin is the Irish form of Catherine, borrowed from Old French in the Middle Ages — and the English-speaking world has been saying it wrong, on a very large scale, since about 1980.
How old is the name Caitlin?
Caitlin first appears in US birth records in 1955 — 70 years ago. The typical Caitlin alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 110,000 people named Caitlin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Caitlin most popular?
Caitlin peaked in 1988, reaching #44 nationally. Today it ranks #2326, 2,282 places below that high. See the whole 1988 chart.
Caitlin appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Caitlin
The story of Caitlin
Old French Cateline was borrowed into Irish as Caitlín, which Irish says roughly kat-LEEN. English speakers, reading the spelling rather than hearing the name, said KAYT-lin instead — and that misreading became the standard English form. The name rose extremely fast in America through the late 1980s, generating dozens of spellings, and the original Irish one peaked in the mid-1990s.
Meaningscholars disagree
pure
Through Catherine, whose received meaning is the Greek katharos, 'pure'. That reading came after the name: the earliest recorded form, Aikaterine, is not explained by katharos, and the spelling was reshaped toward it under the influence of the saint's legend. The original sense is not recovered.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Cateline
- Caitlín
Related forms: Caitlín · Kaitlin · Katelyn · Cateline
Pronouncing Caitlin
KAYT-lin
Two syllables, stress on the first, in English use. Irish says it kat-LEEN, with a different vowel and the stress at the end.
Nicknames for Caitlin
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
- 1955
- Most girls named
- 19887,246 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #44reached in 1988
- Change vs 2024
- −35.5%78 in 2025, from 121
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.
Caitlin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caitlín in Irish — same name
- Kaitlin in English — spelling variant
- Katelyn in English — spelling variant
- Cateline in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, New York, Texas.
Caitlins among us
people named Caitlin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 20,606 born in 2025 was named Caitlin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Caitlin
- #2326
- Caitlin on the 2025 chart
- #467
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Caitlin went to 78 girls in 2025, but Kaitlyn, Caitlyn and Kaitlynn and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 582, which makes it the 467th most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,859 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,762 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 20,606 for Caitlin 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 Joanne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Caitlin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Joanne climbed just as high around 1935, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Joanne's path sketches the road Caitlin is walking now.
Caitlin 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 Caitlin is headed
Caitlin 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.
Caitlin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Caitlin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The original and historically correct spelling of a genuine Irish name.
- It stands inside the enormous Catherine family with cousins everywhere.
- Kate and Katie are both available as short forms with their own long records.
- The English pronunciation is a misreading of the Irish, and Irish speakers will say it differently.
- The spellings proliferated to an extreme degree, so even this one is not assumed.
- It is tightly dated to the 1990s in American records.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Caitlin
Feminine · #2326 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Caitlins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 110,000 people named Caitlin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Caitlin?
- Caitlin is one of 7 recorded spellings. Kaitlyn is the more common one — 340 births in 2025 against 78 for Caitlin.
- How popular is the name Caitlin in 2025?
- Caitlin ranks #2326 among US girl names in 2025, with 78 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Caitlin?
- About 1 in every 20,606 US girls born in 2025 was named Caitlin — 78 in all.
- Will my child share the name Caitlin with classmates?
- Caitlin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Caitlin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Azalia#2326 · Sitara#2326 · Delta#2326 · Ria#2326 · Tommie#2326 · Malaika#2326 · Audrina#2326 · Aris#2326
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Caitlin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Caitlin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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