Kalin
Masculine · “guelder rose”
Kalin is given to both — 1,897 boys and 1,519 girls since 1880. See Kalin as a girl 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 1959 — 66 years ago. The typical Kalin alive today was born around 1998, making them about 27 years old. About 1,800 people named Kalin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kalin most popular?
Kalin peaked in 1994, reaching #1178 nationally. Today it ranks #6143, 4,965 places below that high. See the whole 1994 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
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
- 1959
- Most boys named
- 199494 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1178reached in 1994
- Change vs 2024
- +40.0%14 in 2025, from 10
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
Strongest US states over the last decade: Illinois, California.
Kalins among us
people named Kalin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 122,005 born in 2025 was named Kalin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kalin
- #6143
- Kalin on the 2025 chart
- #876
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kalin went to 14 boys in 2025, but Calin, Calyn and Kallin and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 52, which makes it the 876th most-given boys’ name of the year — 5,267 places above the chart.
- Calin14
- Kalin14
- Calyn7
- Kallin7
- Callyn5
- Khalin5
About 1 boy in 32,848 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 122,005 for Kalin 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 Teruo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kalin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Teruo climbed just as high around 1927, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Teruo's path sketches the road Kalin is walking now.
Kalin 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
Kalin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kalin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
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
Masculine · #6143 in the U.S.
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 1,800 people named Kalin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kalin?
- Kalin is one of 6 recorded spellings. Calin is the more common one — 14 births in 2025 against 14 for Kalin.
- How popular is the name Kalin in 2025?
- Kalin ranks #6143 among US boy names in 2025, with 14 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kalin?
- About 1 in every 122,005 US boys born in 2025 was named Kalin — 14 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kalin with classmates?
- Kalin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kalin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ruel#6143 · Cornell#6143 · Vasco#6143 · Kemper#6143 · Yates#6143 · Roark#6143 · Raja#6143 · Orville#6143
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kalin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kalin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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