Kalob
Masculine · “Hebrew kelev”
Caleb probably means dog, which is a strange thing to call a hero. He is one of only two men who came out of Egypt and lived to enter the land, because he was one of only two who brought back a report nobody wanted.
How old is the name Kalob?
Kalob first appears in US birth records in 1977 — 48 years ago. The typical Kalob alive today was born around 2002, making them about 23 years old. About 1,600 people named Kalob are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kalob most popular?
Kalob peaked in 2000, reaching #1128 nationally. Today it ranks #10695, 9,567 places below that high. See the whole 2000 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kelev to Kalob
The story of Kalob
Twelve scouts are sent into Canaan and ten come back saying the land cannot be taken. Caleb and Joshua disagree, the people side with the majority, and the generation that refused is condemned to die in the wilderness; forty years later Caleb and Joshua are the only two of that generation still alive to cross over. Caleb then asks for the hill country with the fortified towns in it, on the grounds that he is eighty-five and still capable. The name's likely meaning, dog, sits oddly with all this, since dogs are consistently negative in the Hebrew Bible, and the traditional alternative reading, whole-hearted, looks very much like an attempt to fix that. Modern respellings of the name multiplied in the 1990s and 2000s, when it became one of the more common American boys' names.
Meaningscholars disagree
Hebrew kelev, dog
Caleb is generally connected to Hebrew kelev, a dog, which in that culture was not a compliment; an alternative reading takes it as kol lev, whole heart, which is a later and probably homiletic explanation. Kalob is an American respelling; its peak is 2000.
How the name formed
- Kelev
- Caleb
- Kalob
Related forms: Caleb · Kalev · Caleb
Pronouncing Kalob
KAY-lub
Two syllables, stress on the first. Caleb and Kalob are homophones; the o is a schwa.
Nicknames for Kalob
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 boys named
- 2000123 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1128reached in 2000
- Change vs 2023
- −14.3%6 in 2025, from 7
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.
Kalob in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caleb in English — spelling variant
- Kalev in Hebrew — same name
- Caleb in Spanish — same name
Kalobs among us
people named Kalob are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 284,679 born in 2025 was named Kalob
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kalob
- #10695
- Kalob on the 2025 chart
- #917
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kalob went to 6 boys in 2025, but Calob is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 11, which makes it the 917th most-given boys’ name of the year — 9,778 places above the chart.
- Kalob6
- Calob5
About 1 boy in 155,280 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 284,679 for Kalob 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 Calvert test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kalob's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Calvert climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Calvert's path sketches the road Kalob is walking now.
Kalob 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
Kalob beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kalob in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Cal is an immediate short form with a long history.
- The biblical figure is unusually well drawn.
- Two syllables with a firm opening.
- Caleb is the standard spelling by an enormous margin.
- The likely meaning is dog, which is worth knowing.
- The 2000 peak dates this form.
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Kalob
Masculine · #10695 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kalobs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Kalob are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kalob?
- Kalob is the most-used spelling in US records — 6 of the 11 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Calob.
- How popular is the name Kalob in 2025?
- Kalob ranks #10695 among US boy names in 2025, with 6 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kalob?
- About 1 in every 284,679 US boys born in 2025 was named Kalob — 6 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kalob with classmates?
- Kalob will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kalob
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dudley#10695 · Dell#10695 · Buford#10695 · Toney#10695 · Allison#10695 · Candido#10695 · Jodie#10695 · Nora#10695
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kalob? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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