Kaili
Feminine
Kaili is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 2,890 girls against 41 boys since 1880.
Kaili is a genuine crossroads. Hawaiian has Kaili, an old name attached to a war god's image; Estonian has Kaili as an ordinary modern girl's name; Chinese has a city called Kaili in Guizhou; and American English has Kaili as a respelling of Kaylee. All four are unrelated.
How old is the name Kaili?
Kaili first appears in US birth records in 1977 — 48 years ago. The typical Kaili alive today was born around 2004, making them about 21 years old. About 2,900 people named Kaili are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kaili most popular?
Kaili peaked in 2003, reaching #1272 nationally. Today it ranks #6325, 5,053 places below that high. See the whole 2003 chart.
Where it comes from
From Kaylee to Kaili
The story of Kaili
Kaylee is one of the great American inventions of the late twentieth century, assembled from the Kay- opening and the -lee ending with no source language behind it, and it generated more than a dozen spellings within twenty years. Kaili is one of the shortest of them, and it has the side effect of landing exactly on words that already exist elsewhere: an Estonian name, a Chinese city and a Hawaiian religious term. American records cannot distinguish which family a given Kaili comes from, though the overwhelming majority are respellings rather than borrowings. Kaili's best year in the United States is 2003, in the middle of the Kaylee wave.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
The Hawaiian Kaili, more properly written with a glottal stop, appears in the name Kukailimoku, an image of the war god Ku, and its elements are usually parsed as the article ka plus a verb meaning to snatch or carry off; that identification is genuine but the name is not an ordinary Hawaiian given name and should not be claimed lightly. The Estonian Kaili is a modern coinage related to Kai. The American Kaili almost always descends from Kaylee, which has no meaning at all.
How the name formed
- Kaylee
- Kaili
Related forms: Kaili · Kaili · Kaylee
Pronouncing Kaili
KAY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first, in American use. A Hawaiian or Estonian speaker says kah-EE-lee with three, giving each vowel its own value, which is the reading the spelling would suggest anywhere but England and America.
Nicknames for Kaili
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
- 1977
- Most girls named
- 2003164 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1272reached in 2003
- Change vs 2024
- −53.8%18 in 2025, from 39
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.
Kaili in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kaili in Estonian — related form
- Kaili in Hawaiian — related form
- Kaylee in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Florida, Texas.
Kailis among us
people named Kaili are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 89,293 born in 2025 was named Kaili
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kaili
- #6325
- Kaili on the 2025 chart
- #858
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kaili went to 18 girls in 2025, but Kayli, Kaily and Cayli are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 102, which makes it the 858th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,467 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 15,758 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 89,293 for Kaili 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 Nancye test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kaili's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Nancye climbed just as high around 1940, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Nancye's path sketches the road Kaili is walking now.
Kaili 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
Kaili beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kaili in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Six letters, no silent ones, and completely familiar by sound.
- Kai is a strong, current short form that stands entirely on its own.
- The spelling is shorter and cleaner than most of the Kaylee family.
- Kaylee, Kayleigh, Kailee and Kaley are all far more common.
- The vowels suggest three syllables to speakers of most other languages.
- Hawaiian and Estonian meanings are sometimes claimed for it and neither is likely to be yours.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kaili
Feminine · #6325 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kailis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,900 people named Kaili are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kaili?
- Kaili is one of 4 recorded spellings. Kayli is the more common one — 43 births in 2025 against 18 for Kaili.
- How popular is the name Kaili in 2025?
- Kaili ranks #6325 among US girl names in 2025, with 18 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kaili?
- About 1 in every 89,293 US girls born in 2025 was named Kaili — 18 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kaili with classmates?
- Kaili will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kaili
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaye#6325 · Doria#6325 · Karolyn#6325 · Rosaleen#6325 · Roni#6325 · Darian#6325 · Svetlana#6325 · Fanny#6325
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kaili? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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