Caldonia
Feminine
Caldonia is one syllable shorter than the Roman name for Scotland, and whether that is what it came from is not recorded. The place name itself has traveled a long way from the hills it originally described.
How old is the name Caldonia?
Caldonia first appears in US birth records in 1882 — 143 years ago. The typical Caldonia alive today was born around 1919, making them about 106 years old. Fewer than a hundred people named Caldonia are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
When was the name Caldonia most popular?
Caldonia peaked in 1882, reaching #678 nationally. See the whole 1882 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Caldonia
The Romans called the part of Britain north of their forts Caledonia, after a people they fought and never subdued, and the name outlived both. It became the poetic word for Scotland — the label on maps, the word in anthems, the name of canals and railway companies and football clubs — long after nobody could say what the original tribal name had meant. Then it traveled. When Cook charted a long mountainous island in the south-west Pacific, the ridges reminded him of the Scottish highlands and he wrote New Caledonia on the chart. The name stuck, the island is still called that in English and French, and a Melanesian archipelago now carries the Latin name of a people who lived seventeen thousand kilometres away and left almost no record of themselves.
Meaningnot established
Not established
If it shortens the Roman name for northern Britain, it means nothing more than that place, and what the Romans built that name on is itself unknown — a tribal name, probably, whose sense is lost. If it is an independent build, as several American names of that decade were, it means nothing at all. The record does not choose.
Pronouncing Caldonia
kal-DOH-nee-uh
Four syllables with the stress on the second. The missing syllable of the longer place name is the one after the first, so the name reaches its stress faster than the original does.
Nicknames for Caldonia
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
- 1882
- Most girls named
- 191927 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #678reached in 1882
- Change vs 1949
- −50.0%5 in 2016, from 10
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.
Caldonias among us
Fewer than a hundred people named Caldonia are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Caldonia sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Callie detaches cleanly and is a complete name in its own right.
- Four syllables give it a formal length and three quite different short forms.
- The spelling is phonetic by English rules once the stress is known.
- Caledonia and Caldonia will both be written for it.
- It is long for forms built around shorter names.
- Nothing records where any particular family got it, so the place-name reading is a likelihood rather than a fact.
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Caldonia
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Caldonias are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. Fewer than a hundred people named Caldonia are estimated to be alive in the US today — a true one-of-a-kind name.
- How popular is the name Caldonia in 2025?
- Caldonia is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Caldonia with classmates?
- Caldonia will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
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Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Caldonia? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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