Katelyn
Feminine · “From Katherine”
Katelyn is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 134,049 girls against 157 boys since 1880.
Katelyn is the English-spelled end of a very long road: the Greek Aikaterine, worn down through medieval Latin and French, carried into Irish as Caitlín, then written the way American ears actually heard it. The spelling is young; the name behind it has been in continuous use since the early Christian centuries. Said aloud it splits neatly in two — a bright first syllable that has been shortened to Kate for eight hundred years, and a soft ending it shares with the whole -lyn family.
How old is the name Katelyn?
Katelyn first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Katelyn alive today was born around 1999, making them about 26 years old. About 132,000 people named Katelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Katelyn most popular?
Katelyn peaked in 2001, reaching #52 nationally. Today it ranks #1076, 1,024 places below that high. See the whole 2001 chart.
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Katelyn
The story of Katelyn
Katherine spread through Europe on the strength of one of the most widely venerated saints of the medieval church, and every language reshaped it: Catherine in French, Caterina in Italian, Katharina in German. The Old French Cateline reached Ireland and became Caitlín, which in Irish is said closer to kot-LEEN. English speakers who met the written form read it as they saw it — KATE-lin — and by the second half of the twentieth century American parents were spelling it out phonetically, giving Katelyn, Kaitlyn, Katelynn and a dozen cousins. So this spelling is an American invention resting on an Irish borrowing of a French form of a Greek name.
Meaningscholars disagree
From Katherine; traditionally read as "pure"
The oldest form, the Greek Aikaterine, has no agreed source — it has been linked to Hecate and to a word for "each of two," and neither is settled. The familiar "pure" reading comes from later Christian writers who reshaped the name toward the Greek katharos, "pure." That reading is centuries old and genuinely part of the name's history, but it is an interpretation laid on top, not the original sense.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Katherine
- Cateline
- Caitlín
- Katelyn
Related forms: Caitlín · Kaitlyn · Caitlin · Catherine · Caterina · Katharina
Pronouncing Katelyn
KAYT-lin
Stress on the first syllable. The Irish spelling Caitlín is pronounced differently in Ireland — roughly kot-LEEN, with the weight at the end — which is worth knowing if the family has Irish ties.
Nicknames for Katelyn
High
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
- 19945,670 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #52reached in 2001
- Change vs 2024
- −21.3%225 in 2025, from 286
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.
Katelyn in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caitlín in Irish — same name
- Kaitlyn in English — spelling variant
- Caitlin in English — spelling variant
- Catherine in French — related form
- Caterina in Italian — related form
- Katharina in German — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Katelyns among us
people named Katelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,143 born in 2025 was named Katelyn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Katelyn
- #1076
- Katelyn on the 2025 chart
- #679
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Katelyn went to 225 girls in 2025, but Katelynn is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 288, which makes it the 679th most-given girls’ name of the year — 397 places above the chart.
- Katelyn225
- Katelynn63
About 1 girl in 5,581 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,143 for Katelyn 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 Anne test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Katelyn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Anne climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Anne's path sketches the road Katelyn is walking now.
Katelyn is coming down from a big peak (#52 in 2001). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Katelyn is headed
Katelyn is easing off slowly — about 19% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High 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.
Katelyn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Katelyn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Comes with short forms that need no explanation: Kate, Katie and Kat all stand on their own and have done so for generations.
- The full name behind it — Katherine — has been in continuous documented use since the early Christian centuries, across most of Europe.
- Every English speaker can say it correctly on sight; the spelling is phonetic in American English.
- Travels well: relatives of the name exist in French, Italian, German, Irish and Spanish, so the connection is recognizable abroad.
- The spelling competition is real. Kaitlyn, Caitlin, Katelynn, Caitlyn and Kaitlin all sound identical, so she will spell it out on the phone for life. Choosing the version you like best matters more than choosing the "right" one, because there isn't one.
- Most people carrying this spelling today are adults rather than children, so it reads as belonging to a particular stretch of recent decades. Whether that feels dated or simply familiar depends on who is listening.
- The -lyn ending was heavily worked in the same era, which puts Katelyn in earshot of a large group of similar-sounding names.
- In Ireland the ancestral form Caitlín is said quite differently, and Irish relatives may reach for that pronunciation first.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Katelyn
Feminine · #1076 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Katelyns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 132,000 people named Katelyn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Katelyn?
- Katelyn is the most-used spelling in US records — 225 of the 288 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Katelynn.
- How popular is the name Katelyn in 2025?
- Katelyn ranks #1076 among US girl names in 2025, with 225 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Katelyn?
- About 1 in every 7,143 US girls born in 2025 was named Katelyn — 225 in all.
- Will my child share the name Katelyn with classmates?
- Katelyn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Katelyn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ann#1076 · Rubi#1076 · Nayla#1076 · Braelyn#1080 · Zaira#1080 · Harriet#1071 · Kara#1071 · Aniya#1071
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Katelyn? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Katelyn and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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