Kaylee
Feminine
Kaylee is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 140,425 girls against 176 boys since 1880.
Kaylee belongs to a small family of names built rather than inherited — Kay joined to the -lee ending that English has been fond of since Hayley, Ashley and Bailey crossed from surname to first name. In the mid-1980s the British band Marillion put the spelling Kayleigh into a hit song, and the sound spread across the English-speaking world from there. Said aloud it is two clean beats, both open, with nothing in it hard for a child to say.
How old is the name Kaylee?
Kaylee first appears in US birth records in 1943 — 82 years ago. The typical Kaylee alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 139,000 people named Kaylee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kaylee most popular?
Kaylee peaked in 2009, reaching #26 nationally. Today it ranks #255, 229 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kaylee
Kaylee is a modern English-language name, and unlike most entries in a book like this it has no ancient line behind it. Its parts are old — Kay has stood alone as a woman's name for well over a century, and -lee and -leigh come from English place-name surnames meaning a clearing or meadow — but the joining of them is recent. The Kayleigh spelling was carried into wide use by a Marillion song in the mid-1980s, after which Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands and North America all took up the sound in their own preferred spellings. In the United States the -lee ending won out, and Kaylee arrived alongside Kayla, Hailey and Bailey as part of one broad wave of the same music.
Meaningscholars disagree
Not established
Two serious readings compete. The first treats it as a compound: Kay (a short form of Katherine) plus the -lee or -leigh ending borrowed from English surnames, which is how Marillion's Fish described inventing the spelling Kayleigh — from the names Kay and Leigh. The second reads it as an English respelling of Irish names and surnames in the Caol- family, where the element caol means slender, and which reach English as Keeley and Keelin. Neither reading has won, and the name is used widely by parents who hold to one, the other, or neither.
Pronouncing Kaylee
KAY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Kaylee, Kayleigh and Kaylie are all said identically, which is why the spellings get confused with one another.
Nicknames for Kaylee
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
- 1943
- Most girls named
- 20097,219 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #26reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- −13.8%1,205 in 2025, from 1,398
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.
Kaylee in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kayleigh in English (British and Irish usage) — spelling variant
- Kaylie in English — spelling variant
- Kaleigh in English — spelling variant
- Caylee in English — spelling variant
- Kailey in English — spelling variant
- Keeley in Irish (anglicized) — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Kaylees among us
people named Kaylee are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,334 born in 2025 was named Kaylee
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kaylee
- #255
- Kaylee on the 2025 chart
- #234
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kaylee went to 1,205 girls in 2025, but Kailee, Caylee and Cailee and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 1,431, which makes it the 234th most-given girls’ name of the year — 21 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 1,123 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,334 for Kaylee 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 Sara test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kaylee's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sara climbed just as high around 1981, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sara's path sketches the road Kaylee is walking now.
Kaylee is coming down from a big peak (#26 in 2009). 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 Kaylee is headed
Kaylee is easing off slowly — about 22% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Kaylee beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kaylee in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads exactly as it sounds to any English speaker — no pronunciation coaching needed, at school or over the phone.
- Both halves work as names on their own: Kay has a long independent record, and Lee is used for boys and girls alike.
- In use across the United States, Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands, so it travels through English-speaking and Dutch-speaking countries without adjustment.
- Familiar to nearly everyone while past the point of filling a classroom — recognizable without being repeated.
- The spelling will need repeating for life. Kayleigh, Kaylie, Kaleigh, Caylee and Kailey are all in circulation, and people who hear the name have no way of guessing which one you mean.
- Most people carrying this name today are teenagers and young adults, which gives it a fairly specific generational sound — closer to a young woman's name than a baby's, at least for now.
- No settled meaning to hand a curious child. What you can tell them is real and quite interesting: the name was assembled in living memory rather than inherited.
- It sits in a crowded sound-family with Kayla, Hailey, Bailey and Kylie, so mix-ups tend to come from the neighbors rather than from the name itself.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Kaylee to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Kaylee
Feminine · #255 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kaylees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 139,000 people named Kaylee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kaylee?
- Kaylee is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,205 of the 1,431 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kailee, Caylee, Cailee and Kayle.
- How popular is the name Kaylee in 2025?
- Kaylee ranks #255 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,205 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kaylee?
- About 1 in every 1,334 US girls born in 2025 was named Kaylee — 1,205 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kaylee with classmates?
- Kaylee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kaylee
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Faith#254 · Juliana#256 · Kailani#253 · Amy#257 · Journee#258 · Lilly#252 · Leila#259 · Rosemary#251
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kaylee? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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