Cate
Feminine · “Greek Aikaterine”
The h in Catherine was put there on purpose. The Greek Aikaterine has no th, and medieval writers inserted one to make the name look like katharos, pure, which it has nothing to do with. It is the same device that put the b in debt and the n in autumn: a letter added to display an etymology that is not there.
How old is the name Cate?
Cate first appears in US birth records in 1980 — 45 years ago. The typical Cate alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 1,800 people named Cate are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cate most popular?
Cate peaked in 2008, reaching #1528 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 7,332 places below that high. See the whole 2008 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Cate
The story of Cate
Learned letter-insertion was a habit of medieval and Renaissance writers and it left permanent marks on English spelling. Debt got its b from Latin debitum, doubt its b from dubitare, island its s from a wrong guess at Latin insula, autumn its n from autumnus, and Catherine its h from a Greek word it does not descend from. Some of the insertions changed how the words are said, which is why perfect and fault now have their consonants sounded; most did not. Catherine's h is inaudible in English and has never been anything but decorative, and the spellings without it, Caterina in Italian, Katarina in the Slavic languages, Katrina in Spanish, are the older shape. Cate restores it by accident: the short form is spelled the way it is to distinguish it from Kate, and the result is closer to the original than the long form is.
Meaningscholars disagree
Greek Aikaterine, meaning unresolved
The Greek Aikaterine is older than any of its explanations and its origin is genuinely unknown. The spelling with th, and the meaning pure, come from a medieval association with katharos, which is not the source. Cate is a modern short form using the older C and no h, and is closer to the Latin Caterina than the standard English spelling is. It peaks in the American data in 2008.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Caterina
- Cate
Related forms: Kate · Caterina
Pronouncing Cate
kayt
One syllable, long a, with the final e silent and marking the vowel. Identical to Kate. The C rather than the K is the whole difference and it is entirely visual.
Nicknames for Cate
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
- 1980
- Most girls named
- 2008152 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1528reached in 2008
- Change vs 2024
- −57.7%11 in 2025, from 26
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.
Cate in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kate in English — spelling variant
- Caterina in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California.
Cates among us
people named Cate are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Cate
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cate
- #8860
- Cate on the 2025 chart
- #463
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cate went to 11 girls in 2025, but Kate is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 587, which makes it the 463rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,397 places above the chart.
- Kate576
- Cate11
About 1 girl in 2,738 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 146,115 for Cate 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 Krishna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cate's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Krishna climbed just as high around 1971, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Krishna's path sketches the road Cate is walking now.
Cate 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
Cate beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cate in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, plain and impossible to mispronounce.
- Catherine is available as a full formal version.
- The C spelling is closer to the name's older forms.
- Kate is far more common and will be written by default.
- It reads as a nickname rather than a full name.
- The meaning of the underlying Greek name is genuinely unknown.
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What they receive
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Cate
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cates are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,800 people named Cate are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cate?
- Cate is one of 2 recorded spellings. Kate is the more common one — 576 births in 2025 against 11 for Cate.
- How popular is the name Cate in 2025?
- Cate ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cate?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Cate — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cate with classmates?
- Cate will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cate
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cate? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cate and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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