Kendal
Masculine · “valley of the river Kent”
Kendal is given to both — 4,677 boys and 9,123 girls since 1880. See Kendal as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Kendal is the valley of a river called the Kent, and the river's name is older than English. The town gave its name to a green woolen cloth that Shakespeare mentions, and to a block of sugar and peppermint that has been carried up mountains for a century.
How old is the name Kendal?
Kendal first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Kendal alive today was born around 1991, making them about 34 years old. About 4,300 people named Kendal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kendal most popular?
Kendal peaked in 1990, reaching #887 nationally. Today it ranks #6803, 5,916 places below that high. See the whole 1990 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Kent dalr to Kendal
The story of Kendal
Kendal was a wool town, and Kendal Green, a coarse cloth dyed with dyer's broom and woad, was well enough known in the sixteenth century for Falstaff to claim in Henry IV that he was set upon by three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green. Kendal mint cake, invented in the town in the nineteenth century, went up Everest in 1953. The surname followed the place and crossed to America, and the given name is twentieth century, used for both sexes; the male side peaks in 1990 and the female side later, which is the ordinary sequence.
Meaning
valley of the river Kent
From the river Kent in Cumbria and Old Norse dalr, a valley; the town was earlier Kirkby Kendal, the church settlement in Kent-dale. The river's own name is pre-English and its meaning is not recovered. The single-l spelling is the town's; the doubled-l Kendall is the usual surname and given-name form.
How the name formed
- Kent dalr
- Kirkby Kendal
- Kendal
Related forms: Kendall · Dalr
Pronouncing Kendal
KEN-dul
Two syllables with the stress on the first and the second reduced. Kendal and Kendall are identical aloud.
Nicknames for Kendal
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
- 1915
- Most boys named
- 1993137 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #887reached in 1990
- Change vs 2023
- −55.6%12 in 2025, from 27
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.
Kendal in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kendall in English — spelling variant
- Dalr in Old Norse — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Alabama, Louisiana, Ohio.
Kendals among us
people named Kendal are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 142,340 born in 2025 was named Kendal
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kendal
- #6803
- Kendal on the 2025 chart
- #754
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kendal went to 12 boys in 2025, but Kendall is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 175, which makes it the 754th most-given boys’ name of the year — 6,049 places above the chart.
- Kendall163
- Kendal12
About 1 boy in 9,760 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 142,340 for Kendal 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 Niles test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kendal's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Niles climbed just as high around 1942, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Niles's path sketches the road Kendal is walking now.
Kendal 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
Kendal beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kendal in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A genuine English town with a documented Norse element in its name.
- Ken and Kenny are both completely established everyday forms.
- Fully unisex, which some families count as an advantage.
- Kendall with two l's is the standard spelling for the name.
- It is now more common for girls than boys in the United States.
- The river's own name is pre-English and cannot be translated.
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Kendal
Masculine · #6803 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kendals are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,300 people named Kendal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kendal?
- Kendal is one of 2 recorded spellings. Kendall is the more common one — 163 births in 2025 against 12 for Kendal.
- How popular is the name Kendal in 2025?
- Kendal ranks #6803 among US boy names in 2025, with 12 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kendal?
- About 1 in every 142,340 US boys born in 2025 was named Kendal — 12 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kendal with classmates?
- Kendal will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kendal
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zeb#6803 · Buster#6803 · Fabien#6803 · Eston#6803 · Tyjuan#6803 · Fuad#6803 · Aaiden#6803 · Sanford#6803
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kendal? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kendal and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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