Calah
Feminine
Calah is a city in Genesis and one of the great capitals of the ancient world. Assyrian Kalhu, the Calah of the Hebrew Bible, was the seat of the Assyrian empire for a century and a half and is now the archaeological site of Nimrud in northern Iraq. It is also, more likely for most modern bearers, a respelling of Kayla. Its peak is 1994.
How old is the name Calah?
Calah first appears in US birth records in 1981 — 44 years ago. The typical Calah alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 500 people named Calah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Calah most popular?
Calah peaked in 1994, reaching #4238 nationally. Today it ranks #6116, 1,878 places below that high. See the whole 1994 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kalhu to Calah
Our story of Calah
It is worth knowing what Calah was, because almost nobody using the name does. Kalhu was rebuilt by Ashurnasirpal II around 879 BC as the capital of the Neo-Assyrian empire, and the celebration of its completion is recorded on a stela describing a banquet for nearly seventy thousand people. Its palaces held the great carved reliefs now in the British Museum and the Louvre, and the ivories excavated there in the twentieth century are among the finest objects to survive from the ancient Near East. Genesis lists it among the cities founded by Nimrod, which is why the modern site is called Nimrud. In 2015 the site was substantially destroyed. That the name survives as a modern American girls' name, most likely by coincidence and by a different route, is a small strange fact worth recording.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Two quite different possibilities. The biblical Calah is Assyrian Kalhu, a city name whose own meaning is not established. If the modern name is instead a respelling of Kayla or Cala, its origin is different again: Kayla has been variously derived from Kelila, from Michaela, and from an independent modern formation, and none of those is documented. Spanish cala means a cove, which is a third possibility for Spanish-speaking families.
How the name formed
- Kalhu
- Calah
Related forms: Kalah · Kayla
Pronouncing Calah
KAY-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first, in the usual American saying, which treats the name as a spelling of Kayla. The biblical name is more usually said KAH-lah or KAY-lah in English Bible reading, and both are heard.
Nicknames for Calah
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
- 1981
- Most girls named
- 200025 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4238reached in 1994
- Change vs 2024
- +26.7%19 in 2025, from 15
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.
Calah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kalah in Hebrew — spelling variant
- Kayla in English — related form
Calahs among us
people named Calah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 84,593 born in 2025 was named Calah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Calah
- #6116
- Calah on the 2025 chart
- #740
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Calah went to 19 girls in 2025, but Calla, Kalla and Callah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 221, which makes it the 740th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,376 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 7,273 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 84,593 for Calah 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 Maryclaire test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Calah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maryclaire climbed just as high around 1961, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maryclaire's path sketches the road Calah is walking now.
Calah 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
Calah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Calah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Cal and Callie are both usable short forms with independent lives.
- The spelling is short, distinctive and easy to write.
- It has a genuine and remarkable ancient city standing behind it.
- It will be read and written as Kayla by most people.
- Two vowel readings circulate for the first syllable.
- The city's own name has no established meaning.
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What they receive
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Calah
Feminine · #6116 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Calahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Calah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Calah?
- Calah is one of 6 recorded spellings. Calla is the more common one — 156 births in 2025 against 19 for Calah.
- How popular is the name Calah in 2025?
- Calah ranks #6116 among US girl names in 2025, with 19 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Calah?
- About 1 in every 84,593 US girls born in 2025 was named Calah — 19 in all.
- Will my child share the name Calah with classmates?
- Calah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Calah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alvina#6116 · Mena#6116 · Harvey#6116 · Kellie#6116 · Alden#6116 · Jeanna#6116 · Sammi#6116 · Mamie#6116
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Calah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Calah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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