Coleen
Feminine · “girl”
Colleen is not an Irish name. It is an Irish word — cailin, the ordinary noun for a girl — and no one in Ireland would give it to a daughter, any more than an English family would name a child Girl. It became a name outside Ireland, among people who heard the word and liked it, which is a strange and rather touching thing to have happened.
How old is the name Coleen?
Coleen first appears in US birth records in 1912 — 113 years ago. The typical Coleen alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 9,700 people named Coleen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Coleen most popular?
Coleen peaked in 1950, reaching #434 nationally. See the whole 1950 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From cailín to Coleen
The story of Coleen
English-language writing about Ireland in the nineteenth century used colleen constantly, and songs and plays carried it further, so that by the early twentieth century it was a familiar English word with a strong flavor attached. Irish-American families then began giving it as a name — a way of marking a connection with a word that felt Irish because it was. The single l in this spelling is the American variation on it; the Irish original has one l and the English spelling doubled it, so Coleen is arguably the closer of the two to the word it came from.
Meaning
girl
Irish cailin means a girl or a young woman, and it is a diminutive of caile, a countrywoman. The word entered English in the nineteenth century as a piece of stage-Irish vocabulary and was in wide literary use before anyone used it as a name. The meaning is not in doubt. What is worth stating clearly is the status: in Ireland this is a common noun and not a personal name, and the naming use is entirely a diaspora and American development.
How the name formed
- cailín
- colleen
- Coleen
Related forms: Cailín
Pronouncing Coleen
kah-LEEN
kah-LEEN, two syllables, stress at the back, which is how the Irish word is said. Many Americans say KOH-leen with the weight at the front instead, and that reading is now common enough to be standard here even though it is not the original.
Nicknames for Coleen
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
- 1912
- Most girls named
- 1960405 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #434reached in 1950
- Change vs 2017
- 0.0%5 in 2023, 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.
Coleen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cailín in Irish — related form
Coleens among us
people named Coleen are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Coleen sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The single l is closer to the Irish spelling than the doubled one, which is a rare thing for a variant to manage.
- The meaning is a single plain word and needs no explanation.
- Two syllables, easy in any accent, with nothing silent.
- Colleen is the standard spelling and this one will be rewritten as that on most documents.
- The stress falls at either end depending on the speaker, and both are widespread.
- In Ireland it is a common noun rather than a name, and Irish people notice — the reaction is usually amusement rather than offense, but it is a conversation that recurs.
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Coleen
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Coleens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,700 people named Coleen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Coleen in 2025?
- Coleen is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Coleen with classmates?
- Coleen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Carol#2239 · Cynthia#1013 · Catherine#313 · Christine#1272 · Carolyn#1222 · Christina#770 · Charlotte#2 · Cheryl#4352
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Coleen? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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