Khayla
Feminine
Khayla adds an h that cannot be heard. English uses the kh pair for borrowed words, where it once stood for a sound the language does not have, and the most familiar of those borrowings is a color named after dirt.
How old is the name Khayla?
Khayla first appears in US birth records in 1987 — 38 years ago. The typical Khayla alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 800 people named Khayla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Khayla most popular?
Khayla peaked in 1999, reaching #2501 nationally. See the whole 1999 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Khayla
The kh that opens this name is, in most English words, a signal that the word came from somewhere else. It marks a sound English never had, a rasping k that Persian, Arabic, Russian and Scots Gaelic all use and that English speakers reduce to a plain k. The best-known word to arrive that way is khaki. In Persian and Urdu, khak is dust, and khaki means dusty or earth-colored. British soldiers in India, tired of being visible in white, dyed their uniforms with tea, mud and whatever else was to hand, and the word for the color came home with them and stayed. A color named for dirt is now the most respectable thing in a wardrobe. The h in Khayla is not doing that work. It is doing no audible work at all, which is a perfectly ordinary job for a letter in an English name.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The name behind this spelling is Kayla, whose own origin is argued over: a Yiddish name, a clipping of Michaela, and an independent American coinage have all been proposed. Adding the h settles none of it.
Pronouncing Khayla
KAY-luh
Two syllables with the stress in front. The h is silent, and the name is said exactly like Kayla.
Nicknames for Khayla
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
- 1987
- Most girls named
- 200059 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2501reached in 1999
- Change vs 2019
- 0.0%5 in 2020, 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.
Khaylas among us
people named Khayla 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
Khayla 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
- The sound is completely familiar, so nobody is ever at a loss for how to say it.
- Kay comes off the front as a short form with a long history of its own.
- The kh makes the name visually distinct on a page full of Kaylas, which is what it is for.
- The h is silent, so it will be dropped by nearly everyone writing the name from speech.
- Kayla, Kaila and Kaylah are all commoner, and this spelling will be corrected to one of them often.
- No origin is documented for the underlying name, so the meaning question has no settled answer.
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Khayla
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Khaylas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Khayla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Khayla in 2025?
- Khayla is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Khayla with classmates?
- Khayla will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Karen#1279 · Kimberly#302 · Kathleen#1150 · Katherine#186 · Kelly#851 · Kathryn#729 · Kayla#364 · Kathy#3249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Khayla? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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