Kailah
Feminine
Kailah is a phonetic spelling with several possible parents and no proof of any. It sits between Kayla, which is American and enormous; Keilah, which is a biblical town; and the Hebrew Kaila, a Yiddish form of a Hebrew name.
How old is the name Kailah?
Kailah first appears in US birth records in 1982 — 43 years ago. The typical Kailah alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 2,200 people named Kailah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kailah most popular?
Kailah peaked in 2000, reaching #1776 nationally. Today it ranks #5410, 3,634 places below that high. See the whole 2000 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kayla to Kailah
Our story of Kailah
Kayla is one of the great unexplained American names. It is essentially absent before 1960, appears in the 1970s, and rises to the American top twenty by the 1990s — and no source can say with confidence where it came from. A soap opera character in the 1980s helped; a Yiddish Kayle and an Irish Caoilfhionn are both proposed as ancestors and neither can be shown to have produced it. What is certain is what happened next: once Kayla was that big, the sound generated spellings without limit — Kaila, Kailah, Kaylah, Kalia, Keyla. Kailah's peak in 2000 sits at the height of the parent name's run, and it inherits the parent's unresolved origin along with its sound.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No source establishes an etymology. Kayla, the American parent of this sound, is itself of contested origin — a Yiddish Kayle, from Hebrew Kelilah meaning crown, and an Irish Caoilfhionn are both proposed and neither settled. Keilah is a fortified town in Judah in First Samuel, not a personal name. Hawaiian kaila and Arabic Qayla are separately offered without support for this spelling.
How the name formed
- Kayla
- Kailah
Related forms: כילה
Pronouncing Kailah
KAY-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first. The ai is a long a and the final h marks the vowel without adding a sound. Some families say KY-lah with a long i, and the spelling allows it.
Nicknames for Kailah
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
- 1982
- Most girls named
- 200299 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1776reached in 2000
- Change vs 2024
- −32.4%23 in 2025, from 34
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.
Kailah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- כילה in Hebrew — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Kailahs among us
people named Kailah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 69,881 born in 2025 was named Kailah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kailah
- #5410
- Kailah on the 2025 chart
- #303
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kailah went to 23 girls in 2025, but Kayla, Kaila and Kaylah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 8 spellings went to 1,044, which makes it the 303rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,107 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 girl in 1,540 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 69,881 for Kailah 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 Karlyn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kailah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Karlyn climbed just as high around 1968, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Karlyn's path sketches the road Kailah is walking now.
Kailah 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
Kailah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kailah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Kai and Kay are both ready-made short forms with real histories.
- The vowels are open and there is no difficult consonant.
- It reads immediately as a name.
- The first vowel is said two ways and the spelling does not settle it.
- Kayla, Kaila, Kailah and Kaylah are four spellings of nearly one sound.
- There is no established meaning behind it.
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Kailah
Feminine · #5410 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kailahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Kailah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kailah?
- Kailah is one of 7 recorded spellings. Kayla is the more common one — 838 births in 2025 against 23 for Kailah.
- How popular is the name Kailah in 2025?
- Kailah ranks #5410 among US girl names in 2025, with 23 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kailah?
- About 1 in every 69,881 US girls born in 2025 was named Kailah — 23 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kailah with classmates?
- Kailah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kailah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aina#5410 · Sherry#5410 · Kathia#5410 · Taj#5410 · Analicia#5410 · Divya#5410 · Halimah#5410 · Leo#5410
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kailah? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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