Kamal
Masculine · “perfection”
Kamal is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 3,076 boys against 25 girls since 1880.
Kamal is two names that arrived at the same spelling from opposite ends of Asia. In Arabic it is perfection. In Sanskrit it is the lotus. Neither language knew about the other's word, and both are in wide use.
How old is the name Kamal?
Kamal first appears in US birth records in 1946 — 79 years ago. The typical Kamal alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 3,000 people named Kamal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kamal most popular?
Kamal peaked in 1979, reaching #1100 nationally. Today it ranks #2884, 1,784 places below that high. See the whole 1979 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kamal
The Arabic Kamal spread with the language across North Africa, the Levant, Turkey and into South Asia — the Turkish Kemal is the same word — and it is used by Muslim and Christian Arabic-speaking families alike. The Sanskrit Kamala traveled a shorter distance and stayed in India, where the lotus carries an enormous weight of meaning: it grows from mud and opens clean, which is the image half of Indian religious poetry is built on. Both roads reach United States records, and the spelling gives no clue which one a Kamal is on.
Meaningscholars disagree
perfection — in Arabic; the lotus — in Sanskrit
Arabic kamal means completeness or perfection, from the root k-m-l, and it is the abstract noun behind the name Kamil, 'perfect, complete'. Sanskrit kamala means the lotus, the flower that is central to Indian religious imagery and is also a name of the goddess Lakshmi. The two words are unrelated and both readings are documented; which one applies depends entirely on the family.
Pronouncing Kamal
kah-MAHL
Two syllables with the stress on the second in Arabic. Hindi puts it closer to the first, KUH-mul. American English says kuh-MAHL, and all three are heard depending on the household.
Nicknames for Kamal
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
- 1946
- Most boys named
- 200997 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1100reached in 1979
- Change vs 2024
- −15.7%43 in 2025, from 51
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.
Kamal in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kamal in Arabic — transliteration
- Kemal in Turkish — spelling variant
- कमल in Sanskrit — related form
- Kamal in Hindi — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, New York, Michigan.
Kamals among us
people named Kamal are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 39,723 born in 2025 was named Kamal
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Orman test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kamal's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Orman climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Orman's path sketches the road Kamal is walking now.
Kamal 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 Kamal is headed
Kamal should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Kamal beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kamal in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two genuine and entirely separate meanings, both of them fine ones.
- Five letters, no silent ones, and readable at first sight in English.
- Recognized across the Arab world, Turkey and India, which is an unusually wide reach.
- Its meaning depends on which language the family means, and the spelling cannot record that.
- Kamal, Kemal and Kamil are related but separate and get confused.
- The stress falls differently in Arabic and Hindi, so the name is said two ways.
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What they receive
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Kamal
Masculine · #2884 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kamals are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,000 people named Kamal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kamal in 2025?
- Kamal ranks #2884 among US boy names in 2025, with 43 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kamal?
- About 1 in every 39,723 US boys born in 2025 was named Kamal — 43 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kamal with classmates?
- Kamal will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kamal
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Blu#2884 · Rafi#2884 · Minh#2884 · Shaquille#2884 · Arnav#2884 · Jayven#2884 · Tytus#2884 · Hiro#2884
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kamal? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kamal and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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