Kala
Feminine · “Sanskrit kala”
Kala is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 7,680 girls against 92 boys since 1880.
Kala is Sanskrit for time and also for black, and the two senses run together in Kali, the goddess whose name is the feminine of both. Mahakala, great time, is a name of Shiva as the destroyer. Time and darkness and destruction are one word.
How old is the name Kala?
Kala first appears in US birth records in 1943 — 82 years ago. The typical Kala alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 7,500 people named Kala are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kala most popular?
Kala peaked in 1989, reaching #462 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 8,995 places below that high. See the whole 1989 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From kala to Kala
The story of Kala
The identification of time with destruction is worked out explicitly in Indian thought. Kala means time, and time is what consumes everything; Mahakala, great time, is Shiva in his destroying aspect, and the Bhagavad Gita has Krishna say that he is time, the destroyer of worlds, in the line Oppenheimer quoted. Kali, the feminine, is the goddess of that aspect, black, garlanded with skulls, standing on Shiva. The present age is the Kali Yuga, named separately for a different Kali, a figure of strife, and the two are routinely confused. The color sense is genuinely present in the goddess's iconography and her name, and the temporal sense in Shiva's. Sanskrit does not need to choose between them, and Indian commentators from Patanjali onward have made the connection deliberately.
Meaningscholars disagree
Sanskrit kala, time or black
Kala is Sanskrit for time, and separately for black or dark; the two are usually treated as homonyms rather than one word, though the tradition connects them. Kali is the feminine, both the goddess and the name of the present cosmic age. In American records the spelling also serves as a variant of Kayla and as a Hawaiian form of Sarah. The peak is 1989.
How the name formed
- kala
- Kala
Related forms: Kala · Kala · Kayla
Pronouncing Kala
KAH-lah
Two syllables, stress on the first. Sanskrit distinguishes long and short a, which English does not, so the two Sanskrit words fall together in English.
Nicknames for Kala
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
- 1943
- Most girls named
- 1988462 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #462reached in 1989
- Change vs 2023
- −44.4%10 in 2025, from 18
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.
Kala in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kala in Sanskrit — same name
- Kala in Hawaiian — related form
- Kayla in English — related form
Kalas among us
people named Kala are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Kala
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kala
- #9457
- Kala on the 2025 chart
- #740
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kala went to 10 girls in 2025, but Calla, Calah and Kalla and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 221, which makes it the 740th most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,717 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 7,273 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 160,727 for Kala 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 Maryjane test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kala's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Maryjane climbed just as high around 1923, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Maryjane's path sketches the road Kala is walking now.
Kala 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
Kala beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kala in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, easy in several languages.
- The vowels are open and clear.
- It exists as a real word in more than one tradition.
- Several unrelated sources produce the same spelling.
- Kayla and Kaila are close competitors.
- The Sanskrit sense includes destruction.
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What they receive
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Kala
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kalas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,500 people named Kala are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kala?
- Kala is one of 6 recorded spellings. Calla is the more common one — 156 births in 2025 against 10 for Kala.
- How popular is the name Kala in 2025?
- Kala ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kala?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Kala — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kala with classmates?
- Kala will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kala
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kala? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kala and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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