Kathleen
Feminine · “little Kate”
Kathleen is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 713,645 girls against 1,691 boys since 1880. See Kathleen as a boy name
Kathleen is Katherine after Irish has finished with it: a Greek name that went into medieval French, crossed to Ireland, took a Gaelic diminutive ending and came back out sounding like nothing else in English. In America it worked for decades as a signature, the name that told a parish where a family had come from. The revealing part is when it crested. Names that carry an identity almost never peak with the immigrants themselves. They peak with the grandchildren, once the identity has stopped being a liability and started being an inheritance worth announcing.
How old is the name Kathleen?
Kathleen was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Kathleen alive today was born around 1954, making them about 71 years old. About 523,000 people named Kathleen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kathleen most popular?
Kathleen peaked in 1949, reaching #9 nationally. Today it ranks #1150, 1,141 places below that high. See the whole 1949 chart.
Where it comes from
From Cateline, the medieval French form of Katherine to Kathleen
The story of Kathleen
Ireland spent a long time talking about itself under women's names, because talking about itself plainly was dangerous. Kathleen Ni Houlihan was one of them: an old woman with four green fields taken from her, who turns up at a farmhouse door on the eve of a rising and walks back out of it as a young queen. She lived in ballads before Yeats and Lady Gregory put her on a Dublin stage at the start of the twentieth century, and the audiences did not need the allegory explained to them. That is the double life of this name. On every parish register it was an ordinary girl. In the national imagination it was the country's own alias, and a child called Kathleen was named after both at once whether or not anybody in the room said so.
Meaningscholars disagree
little Kate
The shape of the word is not in doubt: an Irish diminutive ending fixed to the short form of Katherine. The trouble is underneath. Katherine's own meaning has never been settled, and the readings offered in name books are later guesses laid over a word that was already old and already foreign when Greek received it. So little Kate is honest about the construction and silent about what Kate meant, which is as far as the evidence actually goes.
How the name formed
- Cateline, the medieval French form of Katherine
- Caitlin in Irish, with the diminutive ending
- Kathleen once English wrote down what it heard
- Kathy, Kate and Katie in daily use
Related forms: Caitlin · Caitlin · Cateline · Catrin
Pronouncing Kathleen
KATH-leen
Two syllables, stress on the first, and the th is the plain one of think rather than the one of this. Irish itself has a t where English writes th, which is why nineteenth-century clerks sometimes wrote Cathlin or Catlin and meant exactly the same name.
Nicknames for Kathleen
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 195126,716 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #9reached in 1949
- Change vs 2022
- −11.8%201 in 2025, from 228
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.
Kathleen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caitlin in Irish — same name
- Caitlin in Scottish Gaelic — spelling variant
- Cateline in French — related form
- Catrin in Welsh — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Pennsylvania.
Kathleens among us
people named Kathleen are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,996 born in 2025 was named Kathleen
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 Frances test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kathleen's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Frances climbed just as high around 1918, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Frances's path sketches the road Kathleen is walking now.
Kathleen has held the top-100 across 7 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Kathleen is headed
Kathleen should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Kathleen beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kathleen in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Everybody can spell it and say it on the first attempt, which is unusual for a name carrying a real Gaelic ending inside it.
- It shortens in three different directions, so a child gets to choose a register rather than inheriting one.
- It sounds like an adult and like a small child equally well, which most soft names manage only at one end of a life.
- It is dated in the friendly way rather than the awkward way, but it is dated: most people will place it in a particular stretch of the last century and a particular kind of household.
- Cathleen, Caitlin and Katelyn all sit close enough that your child will spend a lifetime confirming which one is on the certificate.
- The spelling appears on the register for boys as well as girls; a boy carrying it will be correcting people constantly, because the English-speaking world reads it one way only.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Kathleen
Feminine · #1150 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kathleens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 523,000 people named Kathleen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kathleen in 2025?
- Kathleen ranks #1150 among US girl names in 2025, with 201 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kathleen?
- About 1 in every 7,996 US girls born in 2025 was named Kathleen — 201 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kathleen with classmates?
- Kathleen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kathleen
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Dariana#1150 · Jaycee#1150 · Amyra#1150 · Adela#1150 · Sally#1150 · Kimora#1150 · Amariah#1150 · Abril#1150
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kathleen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kathleen and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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