Cayley
Feminine
Two men called Cayley changed what people could do. One worked out in about 1799 that flight needs lift, drag and thrust as separate forces, and built a glider that carried a man. The other invented matrix algebra. They were father and grandson-in-spirit rather than relatives, and the name is an ordinary Yorkshire surname.
How old is the name Cayley?
Cayley first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Cayley alive today was born around 2001, making them about 24 years old. About 1,200 people named Cayley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cayley most popular?
Cayley peaked in 1998, reaching #1992 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 9,940 places below that high. See the whole 1998 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Cailly to Cayley
The story of Cayley
George Cayley spent his life on a problem nobody had stated properly. Before him, people trying to fly copied birds; he separated the forces involved, worked out that a fixed wing and a separate source of thrust would do it, drew the layout of a modern airplane a century before anyone built one, and put his coachman into a glider across a valley. Arthur Cayley, a generation later, was one of the founders of modern algebra, and his name is attached to theorems students still meet. The surname itself is plain: a place, probably in Normandy, brought to Yorkshire by a family who took it as their name. That it now sounds like a modern invention is an accident of the last forty years.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
An English surname, most often traced to Cailly in Normandy, brought over after the Conquest, and separately to place names in Yorkshire. Its own root is not settled. Unlike most names that sound like it, Cayley is a genuine old surname rather than a modern respelling of Kayleigh.
How the name formed
- Cailly
- Cayley
Pronouncing Cayley
KAY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. It is said exactly like Kayleigh and Kaylee, which is why the spellings are constantly interchanged even though only this one is an old name.
Nicknames for Cayley
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
- 1984
- Most girls named
- 199875 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1992reached in 1998
- Change vs 2024
- +40.0%7 in 2025, from 5
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.
Cayleys among us
people named Cayley are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Cayley
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cayley
- #11932
- Cayley on the 2025 chart
- #726
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cayley went to 7 girls in 2025, but Kailey, Kayley and Cailey and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 236, which makes it the 726th most-given girls’ name of the year — 11,206 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 6,810 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 229,610 for Cayley 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 Patrisha test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cayley's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Patrisha climbed just as high around 1982, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Patrisha's path sketches the road Cayley is walking now.
Cayley 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
Cayley beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cayley in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is a documented English surname rather than a modern respelling, which the identical-sounding names are not.
- Two syllables that everyone says correctly on first sight.
- Two short forms, both of which serve either child.
- Kaylee, Kayleigh and Caylee are all commoner, so it will be assumed to be a respelling of one of them.
- At least six spellings share this sound, and the name will be given letter by letter.
- It reads as a surname to people who know it as one, which cuts both ways.
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What they receive
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Cayley
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cayleys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Cayley are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cayley?
- Cayley is one of 5 recorded spellings. Kailey is the more common one — 153 births in 2025 against 7 for Cayley.
- How popular is the name Cayley in 2025?
- Cayley ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cayley?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Cayley — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cayley with classmates?
- Cayley will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cayley
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cayley? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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