Kaylinn
Feminine
Kaylinn joins two syllables that have both been doing heavy work in American naming: Kay at the front and Lynn at the back. Kay is the older and stranger of them. It is a man's name in Arthurian romance — Sir Kay, the king's foster brother — and a woman's short form of Katherine, and the two have nothing to do with each other.
How old is the name Kaylinn?
Kaylinn first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Kaylinn alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 600 people named Kaylinn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kaylinn most popular?
Kaylinn peaked in 2014, reaching #4178 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 10,764 places below that high. See the whole 2014 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kaylinn
Kay and Lynn both became available as components in twentieth-century American naming, and both were unusually productive — Kay attached to fronts and Lynn to backs, and between them they generated Kaylin, Kaylee, Marilyn, Jaclyn and hundreds of spellings besides. What is worth noticing is the direction of travel. Sir Kay was a man in every medieval text he appears in, and by the time the syllable reached American naming it was doing service almost entirely for women, on the strength of Katherine rather than of Arthur. The two Kays converged in sound and separated completely in use.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Neither half brings a meaning that survives the assembly. The Welsh Cai, which English romance turned into Kay, has no agreed derivation; a borrowing from the Latin Gaius is proposed and unproven. The Kay that shortens Katherine inherits Katherine's own unsolved etymology, so that road ends in a question too. Lynn is Welsh llyn, a lake, but it arrives here as an ending rather than a word. The result is a name with two documented halves and no meaning of its own, which is the ordinary outcome of building this way.
Pronouncing Kaylinn
KAY-lin
KAY-lin, two syllables, stress at the front. The doubled n at the end changes nothing at all in speech; it is the only thing separating this spelling from Kaylin, and it is invisible once the name is spoken.
Nicknames for Kaylinn
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
- 1989
- Most girls named
- 201435 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #4178reached in 2014
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%5 in 2025, from 5
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.
Kaylinns among us
people named Kaylinn are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Kaylinn
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kaylinn
- #14942
- Kaylinn on the 2025 chart
- #447
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kaylinn went to 5 girls in 2025, but Kaylynn, Kaylin and Kailyn and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 12 spellings went to 616, which makes it the 447th most-given girls’ name of the year — 14,495 places above the chart.
and 4 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 2,609 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Kaylinn 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 Darlen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kaylinn's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Darlen climbed just as high around 1936, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Darlen's path sketches the road Kaylinn is walking now.
Kaylinn 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
Kaylinn beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kaylinn in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Both halves are complete names, so there are two ready alternatives at any point in a life.
- The sound is entirely familiar and is never mispronounced.
- It is short enough for a long surname and long enough for a short one.
- Kaylin, Kaylynn, Caitlin and Kaelyn all crowd the same sound, and none of the spellings is standard.
- The doubled n is silent, so it must be dictated and will still be dropped.
- The Kay and Lynn combination dates the name to one narrow stretch of American naming quite precisely.
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What they receive
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Kaylinn
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kaylinns are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 600 people named Kaylinn are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kaylinn?
- Kaylinn is one of 8 recorded spellings. Kaylynn is the more common one — 134 births in 2025 against 5 for Kaylinn.
- How popular is the name Kaylinn in 2025?
- Kaylinn ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kaylinn?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Kaylinn — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kaylinn with classmates?
- Kaylinn will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kaylinn
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kaylinn? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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