Kaleigh
Feminine
Kaleigh is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 16,244 girls against 6 boys since 1880.
Kaleigh is one of a dozen spellings of a sound that took over American naming for a generation, and the -leigh at the end is doing something specific: it is an English woodland clearing, spelled the long way, borrowed to finish a name that has nothing to do with woodland.
How old is the name Kaleigh?
Kaleigh first appears in US birth records in 1980 — 45 years ago. The typical Kaleigh alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 16,000 people named Kaleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kaleigh most popular?
Kaleigh peaked in 2001, reaching #399 nationally. Today it ranks #2957, 2,558 places below that high. See the whole 2001 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Kaleigh
Our story of Kaleigh is about how fast a sound can spread once it is loose. The name arrived in the English-speaking world in the mid-nineteen-eighties, helped along by a song that carried the -leigh spelling on its cover, and within a decade the sound was everywhere in a dozen forms: Kayleigh, Kaleigh, Kaylee, Kayley, Caylee, Kaeleigh. No two families spelled it the same way and none of them was wrong, because there was no standard to be wrong about. That is a name with no orthodox spelling at all — which is rare, and which is the single most useful thing to know about it before choosing one.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The whole is not documented. The ending is genuine: -leigh and -lee both come from Old English leah, 'woodland clearing'. The opening is variously traced to Irish caol, 'slender', through Ó Caollaidhe, and to Kay from Katherine, and neither has been established for this spelling. A page giving Kaleigh a firm Irish meaning has chosen one of several plausible neighbors.
Pronouncing Kaleigh
KAY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. The -leigh is said simply as 'lee'; the gh has been silent for centuries, which is why the shorter spellings exist alongside it.
Nicknames for Kaleigh
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
- 1980
- Most girls named
- 2001729 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #399reached in 2001
- Change vs 2024
- −9.7%56 in 2025, from 62
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.
Kaleigh in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kayleigh in English — spelling variant
- Kaylee in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Georgia, North Carolina.
Kaleighs among us
people named Kaleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 28,701 born in 2025 was named Kaleigh
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kaleigh
- #2957
- Kaleigh on the 2025 chart
- #832
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kaleigh went to 56 girls in 2025, but Caleigh, Calleigh and Kalleigh are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 128, which makes it the 832nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,125 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 12,557 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 28,701 for Kaleigh 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 Kristal test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kaleigh's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kristal climbed just as high around 1982, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kristal's path sketches the road Kaleigh is walking now.
Kaleigh 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
Where Kaleigh is headed
Kaleigh is easing off slowly — about 27% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Kaleigh beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kaleigh in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Kay and Leigh are both ready short forms and both are established names.
- Two easy syllables that every English speaker says correctly at first sight.
- Instantly familiar in sound, so it never needs pronouncing twice.
- There are more than a dozen live spellings of this sound and no standard among them.
- The spelling will be given letter by letter for the child's whole life.
- It is tied very precisely to one stretch of naming, which will be audible on a résumé later.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kaleigh
Feminine · #2957 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kaleighs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 16,000 people named Kaleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kaleigh?
- Kaleigh is the most-used spelling in US records — 56 of the 128 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Caleigh, Calleigh and Kalleigh.
- How popular is the name Kaleigh in 2025?
- Kaleigh ranks #2957 among US girl names in 2025, with 56 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kaleigh?
- About 1 in every 28,701 US girls born in 2025 was named Kaleigh — 56 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kaleigh with classmates?
- Kaleigh will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kaleigh
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Klaire#2957 · Pauline#2957 · Alea#2957 · Odelia#2957 · Rahaf#2957 · Rosabella#2957 · Kenzlee#2957 · Kalli#2957
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kaleigh? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kaleigh and another name?
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Which one would you pick?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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