Cali
Feminine
Cali is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 23,342 girls against 403 boys since 1880.
Cali is made of easy parts — a hard C, a bright open A, and the -ie sound that Callie, Josie and Sadie all end on. It has been three things at once for a long time: a clipped form of Callie, a widely used informal name for the state of California, and a cousin of the Greek names built on kalli-, "beautiful." Its American wave is a recent one, so the great majority of people carrying it are still young.
How old is the name Cali?
Cali first appears in US birth records in 1959 — 66 years ago. The typical Cali is a kid of about 11 — this name's wave is very recent. About 23,000 people named Cali are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cali most popular?
Cali peaked in 2014, reaching #202 nationally. Today it ranks #574, 372 places below that high. See the whole 2014 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Karl to Cali
The story of Cali
Callie has served as a short form of Caroline, Carolina and Calista in English for well over a century, and Cali is the same sound written with one fewer letter. Running alongside that, Cali has long been the ordinary informal name for California — a usage carried far by American music and advertising — and it is also the name of a large Colombian city, founded by Spanish settlers in the sixteenth century as Santiago de Cali. The American given name draws on all of these at once, which is why it reads as both a nickname and a place. Its strongest footing is in California, Florida and Texas.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Three readings compete, and all three are genuinely in play. As a respelling of Callie it inherits the Caroline/Carolina line, where the root is Germanic Karl, "free man." As a relative of Greek names like Calista and Calliope it touches kalli-, "beautiful." And as the familiar short name for California it means, plainly, a place. No single reading has won, and the name is more interesting for it.
How the name formed
- Karl
- Carolina
- Caroline
- Callie
- Cali
Related forms: Callie · Cally · Kali · Kalliope · Carolina
Pronouncing Cali
KAL-ee
Two syllables, rhyming with the first half of California and with alley. Some readers seeing it cold will guess KAY-lee, so expect to correct that occasionally.
Nicknames for Cali
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
- 1959
- Most girls named
- 20141,664 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #202reached in 2014
- Change vs 2024
- −16.7%518 in 2025, from 622
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.
Cali in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Callie in English — spelling variant
- Cally in English — spelling variant
- Kali in English — spelling variant
- Kalliope in Greek — related form
- Carolina in Spanish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Calis among us
people named Cali are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,103 born in 2025 was named Cali
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cali
- #574
- Cali on the 2025 chart
- #205
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cali went to 518 girls in 2025, but Kali, Kalli and Khali and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 7 spellings went to 1,609, which makes it the 205th most-given girls’ name of the year — 369 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 999 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 3,103 for Cali 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 Melba test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cali's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Melba climbed just as high around 1924, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Melba's path sketches the road Cali is walking now.
Cali 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 Cali is headed
Cali is easing off slowly — about 22% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Cali beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cali in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, two syllables, and phonetically transparent once heard — no silent letters and nothing to explain about the sounds themselves.
- Comes with ready-made longer options if a child ever wants one: Caroline, Carolina and Calista all shorten to it naturally.
- Works with the same rhythm in English and Spanish, which matters in the states where it is strongest.
- Almost certainly the only one in a given school, while still being a name teachers have seen before.
- Callie, Cally and Kali are all in circulation, so the spelling will need saying aloud fairly often. It is a one-breath correction, not a lifelong ordeal.
- The California link travels with the name everywhere. Some families love that; if you have no connection to the state, be ready for people to assume one.
- Kali is also the name of a major Hindu goddess, and the sound is close enough that some listeners will hear that first.
- Its rise is very recent, so there is no older generation of Calis to grow into — the name currently reads as young because nearly everyone carrying it is.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Cali
Feminine · #574 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Calis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 23,000 people named Cali are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cali?
- Cali is one of 6 recorded spellings. Kali is the more common one — 948 births in 2025 against 518 for Cali.
- How popular is the name Cali in 2025?
- Cali ranks #574 among US girl names in 2025, with 518 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cali?
- About 1 in every 3,103 US girls born in 2025 was named Cali — 518 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cali with classmates?
- Cali will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cali
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sevyn#574 · Estelle#573 · Mckenzie#576 · Lina#572 · Miller#571 · Cleo#577 · Jimena#578 · Hadassah#569
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cali? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cali and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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