Kole
Masculine · “Coal-black or dark”
Kole is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 9,785 boys against 70 girls since 1880.
Kole is the K-spelled form of Cole, a single closed syllable that lands the way a door does — one sound, no fuss, nothing to trim. Behind it sits a name with a long English record: Cole was a byname and then a surname for centuries before American parents began handing it out as a first name, and the K reshapes that inheritance without touching the sound.
How old is the name Kole?
Kole first appears in US birth records in 1969 — 56 years ago. The typical Kole alive today was born around 2009, making them about 16 years old. About 9,600 people named Kole are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kole most popular?
Kole peaked in 2010, reaching #586 nationally. Today it ranks #1244, 658 places below that high. See the whole 2010 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Cola to Kole
The story of Kole
Cole began as a description rather than a gift: an Old English byname built on the word for coal, attached to people who were dark of hair or face, and recorded as the personal name Cola well before the Norman Conquest. Alongside it, medieval England shortened Nicholas to Col and Colin, and the two streams fed the same surname, which spread widely across England and then traveled with English speakers to North America. Cole crossed back from surname to first name in the United States, where the K-for-C respelling — the same instinct that produced Kaleb, Kayden and Kristopher — gave it a second silhouette. Kole is that silhouette: American in spelling, medieval English underneath.
Meaningscholars disagree
Coal-black or dark, or else a short form of Nicholas
Cole, the name Kole respells, has two serious lines. One traces it to the Old English word for coal, used as a byname for someone dark-haired or dark-complexioned, which survives in the medieval personal name Cola. The other treats it as a clipped form of Nicholas, whose medieval short forms included Col and Colin. Both were in real use, and the surname Cole almost certainly gathered bearers from each.
How the name formed
- Cola
- Colesurname
- Cole
- Kole
Related forms: Cole · Colin · Cailean
Pronouncing Kole
KOHL
One syllable, rhyming with goal. Identical in speech to Cole — the difference lives entirely on paper.
Nicknames for Kole
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
- 1969
- Most boys named
- 2009433 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #586reached in 2010
- Change vs 2024
- −6.4%160 in 2025, from 171
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.
Kole in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cole in English — spelling variant
- Colin in English — related form
- Cailean in Scottish Gaelic — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Koles among us
people named Kole are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 10,675 born in 2025 was named Kole
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kole
- #1244
- Kole on the 2025 chart
- #176
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kole went to 160 boys in 2025, but Cole is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 2,163, which makes it the 176th most-given boys’ name of the year — 1,068 places above the chart.
- Cole2,003
- Kole160
About 1 boy in 790 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 10,675 for Kole 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 Kenton test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kole's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kenton climbed just as high around 1958, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kenton's path sketches the road Kole is walking now.
Kole 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
Where Kole is headed
Kole is easing off slowly — about 18% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Kole beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kole in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- One syllable, one clear vowel: it survives being shouted across a playground and needs no shortening.
- The sound is already familiar to every English speaker through Cole, so nobody has to learn how to say it.
- Sits behind a documented English name line reaching back past the Norman Conquest, in both its coal and its Nicholas readings.
- Pairs cleanly with longer surnames and middle names, which one-syllable first names generally do.
- The default spelling is Cole, and it will be written that way by teachers, dentists and airlines for life. Expect a lifetime of "Kole with a K."
- Because it sounds exactly like Cole, the K does no work out loud — it distinguishes the name only in writing.
- The K-for-C respelling is fairly recent and reads as belonging to a particular stretch of American naming, which some readers will hear and others will not notice at all.
- The word cole survives in English for cabbage crops, so coleslaw jokes turn up occasionally — mild, and usually short-lived.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kole
Masculine · #1244 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Koles are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,600 people named Kole are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kole?
- Kole is one of 2 recorded spellings. Cole is the more common one — 2,003 births in 2025 against 160 for Kole.
- How popular is the name Kole in 2025?
- Kole ranks #1244 among US boy names in 2025, with 160 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kole?
- About 1 in every 10,675 US boys born in 2025 was named Kole — 160 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kole with classmates?
- Kole will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kole
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Wisdom#1244 · Oakland#1244 · Cedar#1244 · Ravi#1244 · Rian#1244 · Jet#1244 · Cory#1244 · Mazi#1241
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kole? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kole and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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