Caylin
Feminine
Caylin is given to both — 2,471 girls and 87 boys since 1880. See other names given to both
Caitlin is Irish for Catherine, borrowed from Norman French, and Catherine's own meaning is unknown. So the American Caylin is a respelling of an Irish borrowing of a French form of a Greek name that nobody can translate.
How old is the name Caylin?
Caylin first appears in US birth records in 1981 — 44 years ago. The typical Caylin alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 2,400 people named Caylin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Caylin most popular?
Caylin peaked in 1996, reaching #1328 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 9,589 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Caylin
The story of Caylin
The Normans brought Cateline to Ireland after 1169, Irish adapted it as Caitilin and then Caitlin, and it became one of the standard Irish women's names, pronounced roughly kotch-LEEN. English speakers meeting it in print in the twentieth century read the letters as English, producing KAYT-lin, and that reading spread through America in the 1980s and 1990s until it was among the most common girls' names in the country. The respellings then multiplied: Katelyn, Kaitlin, Kaitlyn, Katelynn, Caitlynn, Caylin and several dozen more. At the end of that chain is a Greek name from the third century whose meaning has never been established and whose spelling was altered in the Renaissance by scholars who thought it meant pure.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Caylin is an American spelling in the Caitlin and Kaitlyn family. Caitlin is the Irish form of Norman French Cateline, itself from Katherine, whose Greek original Aikaterine has no established etymology. The peak is 1996.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Cateline
- Caitlin
- Caylin
Related forms: Caitlin · Kaitlyn · Katherine
Pronouncing Caylin
KAY-lin
Two syllables, stress on the first. The Irish Caitlin is said kotch-LEEN, which the English reading abandoned entirely.
Nicknames for Caylin
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
- 1981
- Most girls named
- 2009143 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1328reached in 1996
- Change vs 2024
- −50.0%8 in 2025, from 16
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.
Caylin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caitlin in Irish — same name
- Kaitlyn in English — spelling variant
- Katherine in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Caylins among us
people named Caylin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Caylin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Caylin
- #10917
- Caylin on the 2025 chart
- #447
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Caylin went to 8 girls in 2025, but Kaylynn, Kaylin and Kailyn and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 12 spellings went to 616, which makes it the 447th most-given girls’ name of the year — 10,470 places above the chart.
and 4 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 2,609 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 200,908 for Caylin 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 Jenica test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Caylin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Jenica climbed just as high around 1981, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Jenica's path sketches the road Caylin is walking now.
Caylin 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
Caylin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Caylin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Kate and Lin are two complete names inside it.
- Two syllables and six letters, the shortest spelling of the sound.
- It fits the current pattern exactly.
- Dozens of spellings compete for this sound.
- The Irish pronunciation is entirely different.
- The 1996 peak dates this form.
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What they receive
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Caylin
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Caylins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,400 people named Caylin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Caylin?
- Caylin is one of 8 recorded spellings. Kaylynn is the more common one — 134 births in 2025 against 8 for Caylin.
- How popular is the name Caylin in 2025?
- Caylin ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Caylin?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Caylin — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Caylin with classmates?
- Caylin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Caylin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Karri#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Caylin? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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