Kila
Feminine
Kila is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 931 girls against 5 boys since 1880.
Kila is four letters standing in a crowded neighborhood. Kayla, Kyla, Keila, Kiley and Kaila all live within one letter of it, all sound close, and all have separate origins or none. What can be said about Kila with confidence is small, and saying it plainly is better than picking one of the neighbors and claiming descent.
How old is the name Kila?
Kila first appears in US birth records in 1957 — 68 years ago. The typical Kila alive today was born around 1997, making them about 28 years old. About 900 people named Kila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kila most popular?
Kila peaked in 1972, reaching #1627 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 13,315 places below that high. See the whole 1972 chart.
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kila
The K, the single l and the open final vowel are all standard components in twentieth-century American naming, and the tradition that produced them works by combination rather than by inheritance. What such a name gives up is a documented line; what it gains is that it belongs to the person carrying it rather than to a lineage. Kila is also given to boys, though rarely, and a name assembled this way has no reason to lean one way or the other — the leaning comes from what it happens to sound like, not from anything inside it.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No origin is established. The name may be a shortening of Kiley or Kylie, a respelling of Keila, or an independent build on a sound that American naming has favored for decades. It also exists as a word in several unrelated languages, which is what happens to any four-letter combination that is easy to say. None of those coincidences amounts to a derivation, and treating one of them as an origin would be inventing a history the record does not support.
Pronouncing Kila
KEE-luh
KEE-luh, two syllables, stress at the front, is the most common reading. KY-luh, with the first vowel like eye, is the other, and the spelling supports it just as well. Neither is standard, so this is a name that has to be said before it can be written.
Nicknames for Kila
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
- 1957
- Most girls named
- 200535 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1627reached in 1972
- Change vs 2024
- −28.6%5 in 2025, from 7
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.
Kilas among us
people named Kila are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Kila
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kila
- #14942
- Kila on the 2025 chart
- #423
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kila went to 5 girls in 2025, but Kyla, Kylah and Kilah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 676, which makes it the 423rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 14,519 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 2,378 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 321,453 for Kila 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 Adelita test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kila's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Adelita climbed just as high around 1950, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Adelita's path sketches the road Kila is walking now.
Kila 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
Kila beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kila in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Four letters and two syllables, with nothing silent and nothing doubled.
- It works for either child, and nothing in the sound decides.
- It is short enough to carry any surname and open enough to sit beside a hard one.
- The first vowel can be read two ways and both are natural, so the name will be mispronounced regularly.
- It sits inside a very crowded family of similar names, and every one of them will be substituted at some point.
- There is no documented origin to give a child who asks, which is worth deciding about in advance rather than later.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kila
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kilas 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 Kila are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kila?
- Kila is one of 6 recorded spellings. Kyla is the more common one — 512 births in 2025 against 5 for Kila.
- How popular is the name Kila in 2025?
- Kila ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kila?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Kila — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kila with classmates?
- Kila will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kila
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 Kila? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kila and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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