Kayleigh
Feminine · “No single settled meaning”
Kayleigh is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 34,561 girls against 7 boys since 1880.
Kayleigh is one of those names that looks more complicated than it sounds: the whole thing lands as two easy beats, KAY-lee. It arrived on American records in the mid-1980s, part of the same wave that brought Kaylee and Kayley, and it got a second life in Britain when Marillion released a song called "Kayleigh" that became one of the decade's biggest hits there. The -leigh ending is the English spelling habit that also gave us Ashleigh and Haleigh — old-looking, and not old at all.
How old is the name Kayleigh?
Kayleigh first appears in US birth records in 1984 — 41 years ago. The typical Kayleigh alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 34,000 people named Kayleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kayleigh most popular?
Kayleigh peaked in 2009, reaching #227 nationally. Today it ranks #799, 572 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kayleigh
Kayleigh is a modern English name, and its story is mostly a twentieth-century one. It belongs to a large family of American names built from the Kay- sound and a -lee or -leigh ending, which arrived together in the 1980s and spread fast. This particular spelling then got a boost of its own: Marillion's mid-1980s single "Kayleigh" was a major hit in the UK, and British birth records show the name climbing sharply in its wake — one of the clearest cases on record of a pop song naming a generation. In the US it had already appeared on its own before the song, which is why it reads here as part of the broader Kaylee cluster rather than as a straight import.
Meaningscholars disagree
No single settled meaning — read either as the names Kay and Leigh joined together, or as an English spelling of Gaelic cèilidh, a gathering with music and dancing
Fish, who wrote the Marillion song, has said the title came from combining the names Kay and Leigh. Separately, the spelling matches Scottish and Irish cèilidh/céilí, the word for a party with traditional music and dance, and many families choose it for exactly that reason. A third reading links it to Kayley, from the Irish surname Ó Caollaidhe. All three are live; none has won.
Pronouncing Kayleigh
KAY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. It sounds identical to Kaylee and Kayley — the spelling is the only thing that distinguishes them, and the pronunciation almost never trips anyone up.
Nicknames for Kayleigh
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
- 1984
- Most girls named
- 20091,450 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #227reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- −11.9%340 in 2025, from 386
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.
Kayleigh in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kaylee in English — spelling variant
- Kayley in English — spelling variant
- Kaleigh in English — spelling variant
- Caleigh in English — spelling variant
- Kayla in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, New York, North Carolina.
Kayleighs among us
people named Kayleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 4,727 born in 2025 was named Kayleigh
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kayleigh
- #799
- Kayleigh on the 2025 chart
- #588
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kayleigh went to 340 girls in 2025, but Cayleigh, Kaileigh and Caileigh are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 402, which makes it the 588th most-given girls’ name of the year — 211 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 3,998 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 4,727 for Kayleigh 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 Helene test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kayleigh's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Helene climbed just as high around 1916, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Helene's path sketches the road Kayleigh is walking now.
Kayleigh 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 Kayleigh is headed
Kayleigh is easing off slowly — about 23% 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.
Kayleigh beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kayleigh in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Says itself on sight: English speakers read KAY-lee without hesitation, even meeting this spelling for the first time.
- Kay is a ready-made short form with its own long history as a given name — useful for a résumé, a stage, or a shorter mood.
- Recognized across the English-speaking world, and particularly well known in Britain and Ireland thanks to the mid-1980s song.
- Familiar in sound but thin on the ground now, so a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate.
- The spelling will need repeating for life. Kaylee, Kayley, Kaleigh and Caleigh all sound the same, so "Kayleigh — K-A-Y-L-E-I-G-H" becomes a reflex.
- Among adults the name reads as belonging to a particular stretch of recent decades rather than as a classic, and it is stepping back from where it once stood. That can be a plus — fewer duplicates — but it does date the name to an era.
- In Britain the song association is strong and immediate for anyone who remembers it, and it is a break-up song. Most Americans will hear nothing of the kind.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kayleigh
Feminine · #799 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kayleighs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 34,000 people named Kayleigh are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kayleigh?
- Kayleigh is the most-used spelling in US records — 340 of the 402 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Cayleigh, Kaileigh and Caileigh.
- How popular is the name Kayleigh in 2025?
- Kayleigh ranks #799 among US girl names in 2025, with 340 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kayleigh?
- About 1 in every 4,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Kayleigh — 340 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kayleigh with classmates?
- Kayleigh will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kayleigh
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kaitlyn#799 · Dalia#799 · Janelle#799 · Karla#799 · Aileen#799 · Bellamy#797 · Elowen#797 · Rayna#795
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kayleigh? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kayleigh and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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