Cathleen
Feminine · “pure”
Cathleen is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 29,923 girls against 10 boys since 1880.
Cathleen is Kathleen with the Latin c, and Kathleen is Caitlín — the Irish form of Catherine — written so that English speakers can say it. Two respellings, one Greek original.
How old is the name Cathleen?
Cathleen first appears in US birth records in 1896 — 129 years ago. The typical Cathleen alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 24,500 people named Cathleen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cathleen most popular?
Cathleen peaked in 1956, reaching #251 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 9,206 places below that high. See the whole 1956 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Cathleen
The story of Cathleen
Old French Cateline was borrowed into Irish as Caitlín, and English speakers wrote what they heard as Kathleen — which, unlike the later Kaitlin, keeps the Irish stress and vowel. The name spread through Ireland, Britain, Australia and America together in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Cathleen is the C-spelling, matching Catherine rather than Katherine, and it peaked in America in the mid-1950s.
Meaningscholars disagree
pure
Through Catherine, whose received meaning is the Greek katharos, 'pure'. That reading came later than the name: the oldest form, Aikaterine, is not explained by katharos, and the spelling drifted toward it under the influence of the saint's legend. The original sense is not recovered.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Cateline
- Caitlín
- Kathleen
- Cathleen
Related forms: Caitlín · Kathleen · Caitríona
Pronouncing Cathleen
kath-LEEN
Two syllables, stress on the second. This keeps the Irish stress, which the later respelling Kaitlin does not.
Nicknames for Cathleen
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
- 1896
- Most girls named
- 19581,159 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #251reached in 1956
- Change vs 2022
- −23.1%10 in 2025, from 13
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.
Cathleen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caitlín in Irish — related form
- Kathleen in English — spelling variant
- Caitríona in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Cathleens among us
people named Cathleen are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Cathleen
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cathleen
- #9457
- Cathleen on the 2025 chart
- #750
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cathleen went to 10 girls in 2025, but Kathleen is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 211, which makes it the 750th most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,707 places above the chart.
- Kathleen201
- Cathleen10
About 1 girl in 7,617 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 160,727 for Cathleen 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 Elinor test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cathleen's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Elinor climbed just as high around 1916, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Elinor's path sketches the road Cathleen is walking now.
Cathleen 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
Cathleen beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cathleen in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It stands inside the enormous Catherine family by a genuinely Irish route.
- The stress pattern is closer to the Irish original than the modern Kaitlin spellings.
- Cathy and Kate are both available as short forms with long records.
- Kathleen with a K is far commoner and will be assumed.
- The meaning of the parent name is not actually recovered.
- It is closely dated to the middle of the twentieth century.
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What they receive
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Cathleen
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cathleens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 24,500 people named Cathleen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cathleen?
- Cathleen is one of 2 recorded spellings. Kathleen is the more common one — 201 births in 2025 against 10 for Cathleen.
- How popular is the name Cathleen in 2025?
- Cathleen ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cathleen?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Cathleen — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cathleen with classmates?
- Cathleen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cathleen
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cathleen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cathleen and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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