Kyle
Masculine · Scottish Gaelic roots · “narrow strait”
Kyle is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 485,780 boys against 8,933 girls since 1880. See Kyle as a girl name
Kyle started life as a piece of Scottish coastline: caol, the Gaelic word for a narrow strait, the element behind Kyle of Lochalsh and the many kyles threaded between the islands and the mainland. From water it became a place, from a place a surname, and from a surname a first name — one syllable, one clean vowel, nothing to explain when you say it aloud.
How old is the name Kyle?
Kyle first appears in US birth records in 1881 — 144 years ago. The typical Kyle alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 462,000 people named Kyle are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kyle most popular?
Kyle peaked in 1990, reaching #18 nationally. Today it ranks #508, 490 places below that high. See the whole 1990 chart.
Where it comes from
From caol (Scottish Gaelic, 'narrow') to Kyle
The story of Kyle
The word came first: caol, Gaelic for narrow, attached to the tidal channels of the Scottish west coast and to the land beside them. Families who lived there took the place as a surname, and Kyle traveled with Scottish emigration into England, Ireland, North America, Australia and South Africa. Like many Scottish surnames, it crossed into first-name use, and in the United States that use grew steadily through the twentieth century until Kyle was one of the standard boys' names of its era. It has been on American records continuously since the nineteenth century — never absent, sometimes quiet, once very loud.
Meaning
narrow strait, channel
The name traces to Scottish Gaelic caol, 'narrow', used of the sea channels called kyles. The district of Kyle in Ayrshire shares the spelling, though whether it comes from that same word is not settled.
How the name formed
- caolScottish Gaelic, 'narrow'
- KyleScottish place name
- Kylesurname
- Kylegiven name
Related forms: Caol · Кайл · カイル · Kyler
Pronouncing Kyle
KYLE
One syllable, rhyming with mile. The same in every English-speaking country, and easy for speakers of most other languages to approximate.
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
- 1881
- Most boys named
- 198920,882 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #18reached in 1990
- Change vs 2022
- −26.5%594 in 2025, from 808
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
- Кайл in Russian — transliteration
- カイル in Japanese — transliteration
- Kyler in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Kyles among us
people named Kyle are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 2,876 born in 2025 was named Kyle
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Stephen 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: Stephen climbed just as high around 1949, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Stephen's path sketches the road Kyle is walking now.
Kyle is coming down from a big peak (#18 in 1990). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Kyle is headed
Kyle is easing off slowly — about 21% 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.
Kyle beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kyle 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 spelling, and no pronunciation guesswork — it is read correctly on a first attempt by nearly everyone.
- A documented line from a real Gaelic word through Scottish places and surnames, unbroken on US records since the nineteenth century.
- Immediately familiar across the English-speaking world, since Scottish emigration carried the surname to five continents.
- Reads unambiguously as a boy's name in American use, with no competing feminine road.
- Its big years were recent enough that most Kyles today are grown adults, so a child with the name will share it mainly with people a generation or two older rather than with classmates.
- There is a stretch of internet humor that uses 'Kyle' as a stock name for an angry teenage boy. It has faded and never touched the name's actual use, but it is worth knowing the joke exists.
- With one syllable and no long formal version, Kyle offers little room for nicknames, and it can run short against a one-syllable surname.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kyle
Masculine · Scottish Gaelic roots · #508 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 462,000 people named Kyle are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kyle in 2025?
- Kyle ranks #508 among US boy names in 2025, with 594 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kyle?
- About 1 in every 2,876 US boys born in 2025 was named Kyle — 594 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.
Johnathan#508 · Cillian#507 · Leonidas#510 · Gunner#506 · Alonzo#511 · Pierce#505 · Corbin#512 · Ronin#504
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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