Kylie
Feminine
Kylie is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 121,890 girls against 450 boys since 1880.
Kylie is a two-syllable name that says exactly what it spells: KY-lee, no hidden letters, no argument. It is one of the few names in wide American use with a genuine Australian thread running through it — the word kylie belongs to Australian English, borrowed from the Noongar language of Western Australia, and the name traveled the same ocean routes as the pop records that carried it.
How old is the name Kylie?
Kylie first appears in US birth records in 1960 — 65 years ago. The typical Kylie alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 121,000 people named Kylie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kylie most popular?
Kylie peaked in 2004, reaching #49 nationally. Today it ranks #204, 155 places below that high. See the whole 2004 chart.
Kylie appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
The story of Kylie
The name belongs first to Australia, where it came into common use in the second half of the twentieth century, well before American parents knew it. Its rise there put it in the path of a young Melbourne actress and singer whose recording career took off in the late 1980s and made the spelling recognizable across the English-speaking world. American use followed, and a second famous bearer a generation later kept the spelling in front of people who had never heard the first. Whether the word behind it is the Noongar boomerang or the Scottish Kyle, the road into American English ran through Australia.
Meaningscholars disagree
Two competing readings: a boomerang, or a feminine form of Kyle
Australian English has the word kylie (also spelled kiley), a type of flat throwing stick or boomerang, taken from Noongar, a language of Western Australia. Whether the given name comes from that word or was simply formed from Kyle — a Scottish surname and place name from Gaelic caol, 'narrow, a strait' — with the -lie ending shared by Kelly and Kayley, has never been settled. Both readings are seriously held.
Cultural footprint
Kylie Minogue (b. 1968) — Australia's pop icon ("Can't Get You Out of My Head")
Kylie Jenner (b. 1997) — Beauty mogul and reality-TV star
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
Pronouncing Kylie
KY-lee
Stress on the first syllable, which rhymes with 'sky'. English speakers read it correctly on sight; the main risk is not mispronunciation but a follow-up question about which spelling you used.
Nicknames for Kylie
High
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
- 1960
- Most girls named
- 20035,558 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #49reached in 2004
- Change vs 2024
- −6.8%1,491 in 2025, from 1,599
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.
Kylie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kylee in English — spelling variant
- Kyleigh in English — spelling variant
- Kiley in English — spelling variant
- Kyla in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Kylies among us
people named Kylie are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,078 born in 2025 was named Kylie
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 Darlene test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kylie's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Darlene climbed just as high around 1958, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Darlene's path sketches the road Kylie is walking now.
Kylie is coming down from a big peak (#49 in 2004). 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 Kylie is headed
Kylie should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Kylie beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kylie in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads aloud correctly the first time for English speakers — no silent letters, no stress ambiguity.
- Short and complete on its own, while still offering Ky and Kyles for informal use.
- Recognized across the English-speaking world, with an unbroken record in Australia, Britain and the US.
- Two syllables ending in a vowel, which sits easily in front of most surnames.
- Kylee, Kyleigh and Kiley all sound identical, so she will spend her life confirming the spelling — usually with a quick 'with an i-e at the end'.
- The two best-known bearers are both very public figures in music and beauty, and the name carries their echo. That fades with distance, but for now people often mention one of them.
- Its American use clusters within a fairly narrow band of birth years, so it reads as belonging to a particular stretch of decades rather than as a name from everywhere and always.
- The boomerang story is widely repeated but genuinely unsettled — worth knowing before you pass it on as fact.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Kylie to the vote.
Add it to a family vote or a couple’s swipe deck — the other person gets one card, a simple answer and room to say why. No app, no account for them.
Only the people you invite can see your list.
Already decided on Kylie? Hide it among decoys and let them guess.
What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Kylie
Feminine · #204 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kylies are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 121,000 people named Kylie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kylie in 2025?
- Kylie ranks #204 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,491 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kylie?
- About 1 in every 1,078 US girls born in 2025 was named Kylie — 1,491 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kylie with classmates?
- Kylie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kylie
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vera#205 · Stevie#203 · Noelle#202 · Jasmine#206 · Mabel#201 · Celine#207 · Adaline#208 · Lia#200
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kylie? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kylie and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
Compare side by sideIn a hurry? Just pick a winner — one tap, no sign-up, and you see how everyone else voted.
Or jump into a head-to-head
Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
No advertising trackers and no data sellinghow we handle your dataindependent and founder-run, about Name Battle