Kylei
Feminine · “Noongar "boomerang”
Kylie is an Aboriginal Australian word. In the Noongar language of Western Australia a kylie is a returning boomerang, and the word was recorded by English settlers in the nineteenth century — long before anyone used it as a name.
How old is the name Kylei?
Kylei first appears in US birth records in 1989 — 36 years ago. The typical Kylei alive today was born around 2011, making them about 14 years old. About 1,200 people named Kylei are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kylei most popular?
Kylei peaked in 2012, reaching #2373 nationally. Today it ranks #7885, 5,512 places below that high. See the whole 2012 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From kylie to Kylei
The story of Kylei
The word appears in colonial Australian vocabularies from the 1830s and 1840s, and boomerang itself comes from a different Aboriginal language, Dharug, spoken around Sydney — so English took two words for the same object from two unrelated languages a continent apart. Kylie became a given name in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, spread to Britain and America in the 1980s, and was in the American top hundred by the 1990s. Whether Australian parents in the 1950s were choosing the Noongar word or a feminine of Kyle is genuinely unclear and probably varied. Kylei peaks in America in 2012.
Meaningscholars disagree
Noongar "boomerang"; or a feminine of Kyle
Kylie is recorded in nineteenth-century Western Australian sources as a word for a curved throwing stick, from Noongar or a neighboring language. It is also explained as a feminine of Kyle, from Gaelic caol, a narrow strait, or as an elaboration of Kylee. All three readings are live and the record does not settle which applies to a given family. Kylei is an American respelling.
How the name formed
- kylie
- Kylie
- Kylei
Related forms: Kylie · Kyleigh
Pronouncing Kylei
KY-lee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Kylie, Kylei and Kyleigh are pronounced identically; the spellings carry no phonetic difference.
Nicknames for Kylei
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
- 1989
- Most girls named
- 201278 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2373reached in 2012
- Change vs 2024
- −40.9%13 in 2025, from 22
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.
Kylei in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kylie in English — spelling variant
- Kyleigh in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina.
Kyleis among us
people named Kylei are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 123,636 born in 2025 was named Kylei
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kylei
- #7885
- Kylei on the 2025 chart
- #880
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kylei went to 13 girls in 2025, but Kiley and Kyley are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 80, which makes it the 880th most-given girls’ name of the year — 7,005 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 20,091 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 123,636 for Kylei 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 Teonna test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kylei's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Teonna climbed just as high around 1996, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Teonna's path sketches the road Kylei is walking now.
Kylei 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
Kylei beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kylei in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, two syllables and easy for a child to write.
- Ky works as a short form for either sex.
- One of its possible sources is a genuine Australian language word.
- Kylie is the standard spelling and will be substituted constantly.
- Three unrelated origins are proposed and none is settled.
- The 2010s peak dates a bearer fairly precisely.
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What they receive
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Kylei
Feminine · #7885 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kyleis are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Kylei are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kylei?
- Kylei is one of 3 recorded spellings. Kiley is the more common one — 61 births in 2025 against 13 for Kylei.
- How popular is the name Kylei in 2025?
- Kylei ranks #7885 among US girl names in 2025, with 13 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kylei?
- About 1 in every 123,636 US girls born in 2025 was named Kylei — 13 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kylei with classmates?
- Kylei will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kylei
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ola#7885 · Loula#7885 · Consuelo#7885 · Santa#7885 · Florentina#7885 · Marty#7885 · Jaye#7885 · Dollie#7885
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kylei? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kylei and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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