Kyle
Feminine · “a narrow strait or channel”
Kyle is given to boys far more often — 485,780 boys against 8,933 girls since 1880. See Kyle as a boy name
Kyle was a girls' name before it was a boys' name in America, which is the reverse of what almost always happens. Its female peak is 1951; the enormous male run came thirty years later, and by then the girls had gone.
How old is the name Kyle?
Kyle first appears in US birth records in 1915 — 110 years ago. The typical Kyle alive today was born around 1983, making them about 42 years old. About 8,300 people named Kyle are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kyle most popular?
Kyle peaked in 1951, reaching #594 nationally. Today it ranks #6546, 5,952 places below that high. See the whole 1951 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From caol to Kyle
The story of Kyle
Scottish topographic surnames crossed to America and became given names in the ordinary way, and Kyle was in modest use for both sexes through the first half of the twentieth century. Its female side peaked in 1951 and declined thereafter; the male side then rose steeply from the 1970s and became one of the defining American boys' names of the 1980s and 1990s. That order is unusual. The normal sequence is male first, then unisex, then female, then the boys leave, as happened to Whitney, Ashley and Shannon. Kyle went the other way, and there is no settled account of why.
Meaning
a narrow strait or channel
From Scottish Gaelic caol, narrow, used as a noun for a strait or a narrow stretch of water; the Kyle of Lochalsh and the Kyles of Bute are the obvious examples. It is also a district of Ayrshire and a surname from both sources. The word is the same one behind Caolan and the Irish caol.
How the name formed
- caol
- Kyle
- Kyle
Related forms: Caol · Caol
Pronouncing Kyle
KYLE
One syllable, rhyming with mile. The Gaelic caol is closer to kœl with a rounded vowel, but the English pronunciation has been standard for centuries.
Nicknames for Kyle
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
- 1915
- Most girls named
- 1985303 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #594reached in 1951
- Change vs 2023
- −43.3%17 in 2025, from 30
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.
Kyle in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caol in Scottish Gaelic — related form
- Caol in Irish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Illinois.
Kyles among us
people named Kyle are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 94,545 born in 2025 was named Kyle
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kyle
- #6546
- Kyle on the 2025 chart
- #636
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kyle went to 17 girls in 2025, but Kylee and Khylee are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 345, which makes it the 636th most-given girls’ name of the year — 5,910 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 4,659 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 94,545 for Kyle 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 Lavern test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kyle's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Lavern climbed just as high around 1926, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Lavern's path sketches the road Kyle is walking now.
Kyle 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
Kyle beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kyle in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled Gaelic meaning with real Scottish geography behind it.
- One syllable and four letters, impossible to mispronounce.
- Ky works as a short form and is fully unisex.
- It is now overwhelmingly a man's name in the United States.
- The female use is closely dated to the 1940s and 1950s.
- It will be read as a boy's name on any form.
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What they receive
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Kyle
Feminine · #6546 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kyles are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 8,300 people named Kyle are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kyle?
- Kyle is one of 3 recorded spellings. Kylee is the more common one — 306 births in 2025 against 17 for Kyle.
- How popular is the name Kyle in 2025?
- Kyle ranks #6546 among US girl names in 2025, with 17 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kyle?
- About 1 in every 94,545 US girls born in 2025 was named Kyle — 17 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kyle with classmates?
- Kyle will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kyle
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Roseann#6546 · Solveig#6546 · Elona#6546 · Rosette#6546 · Bradie#6546 · Rida#6546 · Gwendalyn#6546 · Lorene#6546
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kyle? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kyle and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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