Khary
Masculine
Khary is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 928 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Khary belongs to a particular moment in American naming, and the kh at the front of it is the clearest signal of that moment. The sound it spells is an ordinary English k; the letters are there to say where the name means to come from.
How old is the name Khary?
Khary first appears in US birth records in 1971 — 54 years ago. The typical Khary alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 900 people named Khary are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Khary most popular?
Khary peaked in 1975, reaching #1138 nationally. See the whole 1975 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Khary
The kh is worth understanding rather than dismissing. In transliteration from Arabic, Persian or Russian it marks a real sound — a rasp at the back of the throat that English does not have. English borrowed the letter pair without the sound, so in an American name it does no phonetic work at all: it is a visual mark, a way of saying that this name is not from the English stock. That was the point. The books that supplied African names to American parents in those years were thin and often careless, assembling glosses from sources nobody checked, and a great many names that came out of them cannot be traced to any language. What is real is the decision and the generation that made it, which is a better story than a borrowed translation would have been — and it is the true one.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No African language supplies Khary, and the glosses offered for it — kingly is the usual one — name no word in any of them. What can be said is that it was given deliberately, by parents making a choice about heritage, in a decade when a great many American families were doing the same thing.
Pronouncing Khary
KAR-ee
Two syllables, stress at the front, said like Carrie. The kh is a plain k in American speech.
Nicknames for Khary
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
- 1971
- Most boys named
- 197758 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1138reached in 1975
- Change vs 2021
- −44.4%5 in 2022, from 9
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.
Kharys among us
people named Khary are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Khary sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- It is short, easy and immediately sayable by anyone.
- The spelling is distinctive while the sound is entirely familiar.
- It belongs to a specific and deliberate chapter of American naming, which is a real story to tell.
- It is said exactly like Carrie, a woman's name, and the spelling is the only thing that distinguishes them.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- The meaning found online is invented, and he is better off knowing that early.
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Khary
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Kharys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Khary are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Khary in 2025?
- Khary is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Khary with classmates?
- Khary will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Kenneth#294 · Kevin#221 · Kyle#508 · Keith#800 · Karl#1585 · Kaleb#295 · Kurt#2258 · Kelly#1867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Khary? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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