Kalin
Feminine · “guelder rose”
Kalin is given to both — 1,519 girls and 1,897 boys since 1880. See Kalin as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Kalin is a Bulgarian man's name taken from a shrub, and an American respelling of something else entirely, and the two are impossible to tell apart on paper. In Bulgaria it is ordinary, named for the guelder rose, a shrub with white flowers and red berries that turns up constantly in Slavic folk song. In America it is usually a variant of a modern coinage.
How old is the name Kalin?
Kalin first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Kalin alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 1,500 people named Kalin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kalin most popular?
Kalin peaked in 1998, reaching #1830 nationally. See the whole 1998 chart.
Where it comes from
From A Slavic shrub name used as a personal name to Kalin
The story of Kalin
The shrub is genuinely important in Slavic folk culture. It appears in wedding songs, in laments and in a very large number of proverbs, generally standing for a young woman, and both the Bulgarian men's name and the corresponding women's name are built on it. That is a naming pattern with almost no English equivalent: English will name a daughter after a flower readily and a son after a plant essentially never, whereas Slavic naming has been comfortable with both for centuries. In America the same letters arrived by the ordinary route of a rhyme family and a productive ending, and the result is a name that reads as new here and as traditional in Sofia, with nothing on the certificate to indicate which a family meant.
Meaningscholars disagree
guelder rose
The Bulgarian name comes from the shrub, and that derivation is standard. The American name has no meaning: it belongs to a family of modern formations built from a front and an ending, and no source exists for it. A given certificate could be either, and the spelling records nothing that would let you choose.
How the name formed
- A Slavic shrub name used as a personal name
- Kalin as an ordinary Bulgarian man's name
- An American coinage arriving at the same letters
- Recorded for both sexes in the American registers
Related forms: Kalin · Kalin
Pronouncing Kalin
KAY-lin
Two syllables with the stress on the first in American use. Bulgarian puts it on the second and gives the first a short a, giving kah-LEEN, so the same five letters produce two quite different names depending on where you are.
Nicknames for Kalin
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
- 1970
- Most girls named
- 199884 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1830reached in 1998
- Change vs 2018
- 0.0%6 in 2023, from 6
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.
Kalin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kalin in Bulgarian — same name
- Kalin in Macedonian — same name
Kalins among us
people named Kalin 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
Kalin 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
- It is short, easy and completely unambiguous in speech once the stress is settled.
- It works on the register for either child, which the record confirms.
- It is a real traditional name somewhere in the world, which most names of its shape are not.
- The stress falls differently in Bulgarian and American English, and both are correct.
- It will be written Kaylin, Kalen or Kaelin by anybody taking it from speech.
- There is no meaning on the American route, only on the Bulgarian one.
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What they receive
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Kalin
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Kalins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,500 people named Kalin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kalin in 2025?
- Kalin is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Kalin with classmates?
- Kalin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Karen#1279 · Kimberly#302 · Kathleen#1150 · Katherine#186 · Kelly#851 · Kathryn#729 · Kayla#364 · Kathy#3249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kalin? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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