Kollin
Masculine · “little Nicholas”
Kollin is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 2,777 boys against 5 girls since 1880.
Kollin is Colin rewritten, and Colin itself is a name with two separate histories that met in English. The K and the doubled l are recent American choices; everything underneath them is medieval.
How old is the name Kollin?
Kollin first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Kollin alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 2,700 people named Kollin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kollin most popular?
Kollin peaked in 1996, reaching #1236 nationally. Today it ranks #3128, 1,892 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Nicholas to Kollin
The story of Kollin
Medieval England made pet names by clipping and adding -in, so Nicholas gave Col and Col gave Colin. Quite separately, Scottish Gaelic Cailean was written as Colin when Highland names were put into English, and the two became one spelling with two ancestries. Colin was steady in twentieth-century America; the Kollin and Kollen respellings arrived in the last few decades, part of a broad move to swap a hard C for a K.
Meaningscholars disagree
little Nicholas, or young pup
Two lines feed the name. English Colin is a medieval pet form of Col, itself short for Nicholas, meaning victory of the people. Scottish Gaelic Cailean, anglicized as Colin, is built on a word for a whelp or young dog, and was a name of the Campbell chiefs.
How the name formed
- Nicholas
- Col
- Colin
- Kollin
Related forms: Colin · Cailean · Colin
Pronouncing Kollin
KAH-lin
Two syllables. British usage often stresses it as KOH-lin; American usage generally does not.
Nicknames for Kollin
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
- 1970
- Most boys named
- 2009128 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1236reached in 1996
- Change vs 2024
- +40.7%38 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.
Kollin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Colin in English — spelling variant
- Cailean in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Colin in French — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Michigan, Florida.
Kollins among us
people named Kollin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 44,949 born in 2025 was named Kollin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kollin
- #3128
- Kollin on the 2025 chart
- #225
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kollin went to 38 boys in 2025, but Colin, Collin and Kolin and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 1,628, which makes it the 225th most-given boys’ name of the year — 2,903 places above the chart.
About 1 boy in 1,049 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 44,949 for Kollin 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 Amber test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kollin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Amber climbed just as high around 1981, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Amber's path sketches the road Kollin is walking now.
Kollin 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 Kollin is headed
Kollin is easing off slowly — about 24% 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.
Kollin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kollin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The sound is completely familiar, so only the spelling is ever in question.
- Two real documented ancestries sit behind it, English and Gaelic.
- Short, easy on a form, and it has aged well across several generations.
- Colin is the standard spelling and will be written on almost everything unless corrected.
- Kollin, Kolin, Collin and Colin are four live spellings of one name, and he will recite his.
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Kollin
Masculine · #3128 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kollins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,700 people named Kollin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kollin?
- Kollin is one of 5 recorded spellings. Colin is the more common one — 950 births in 2025 against 38 for Kollin.
- How popular is the name Kollin in 2025?
- Kollin ranks #3128 among US boy names in 2025, with 38 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kollin?
- About 1 in every 44,949 US boys born in 2025 was named Kollin — 38 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kollin with classmates?
- Kollin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kollin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hamilton#3128 · Juanpablo#3128 · Courtney#3128 · Baxter#3128 · Javen#3128 · Hal#3128 · Dawud#3128 · Tavion#3128
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kollin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kollin and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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