Kai
- Pronunciation
- [Kai]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Unisexual Name Meaning "The Sea."
- Origin
- Hawaiian
About the Name Kai
Kai is a short, resonant name embraced across many cultures, perhaps best known in its Hawaiian sense, where it means "the sea." Crisp and elemental, it evokes the ocean's openness and calm, and its single syllable carries a clean, modern simplicity that has made it a favorite around the world for both girls and boys. Few names manage to feel so brief and yet so evocative.
The name's appeal is its versatility and its natural imagery: it feels fresh, gender-flexible, and effortlessly cool, while its watery meaning lends it a serene, grounded quality. Kai fits perfectly within the contemporary love of brief, nature-inspired names that travel easily across languages and cultures. Its broad international resonance — appearing in Hawaiian, Scandinavian, Japanese, and other traditions — only adds to its sense of openness and ease.
For girls, Kai first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2010 and reached its peak in 2021 at rank #769. It last appeared on the girls' list in 2023 at #940, and across its run has been given to about 4,375 girls — one of the strongest showings in this group, reflecting its rising appeal as a unisex choice. A recorded variant is Kaia, which extends the name with a soft, flowing second syllable. For parents who want a brief, modern, nature-inspired name that works beautifully for a girl while carrying a calm, oceanic spirit, Kai offers simplicity, strength, and a quietly elemental beauty.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Kai
US Popularity History (2000–2025)
Annual US births named Kai by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2022 with 5,366 boys named Kai (boy rank #59 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2025, ranked #93 for boys (3,768 US births). That's 34 places below its 2022 peak.
Source: US Social Security Administration. Limitations: US birth-certificate data only; names appearing fewer than 5 times in a given year are suppressed for privacy; spelling variants are counted separately. For names that ranked outside the US top 100 before year 2000, only the years they reached the top 100 are shown — the chart may have gaps for less-popular historical names.
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Where in the US Is Kai Most Popular?
Average boy-name rank within each state across 2016–2025 SSA records. A lower number means the name appears closer to the top of that state's boys-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Kai the strongest states are Hawaii, Florida, Utah.
Strongest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hawaii | #9 | 362 |
| 2 | Florida | #59 | 3,117 |
| 3 | Utah | #60 | 651 |
| 4 | District of Columbia | #62 | 167 |
| 5 | Washington | #68 | 1,024 |
| 6 | Alaska | #74 | 116 |
| 7 | Nevada | #76 | 388 |
| 8 | New Mexico | #77 | 239 |
| 9 | California | #78 | 5,316 |
| 10 | Louisiana | #85 | 583 |
Weakest boys-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #186 | 187 |
| 2 | Kentucky | #181 | 321 |
| 3 | Alabama | #149 | 390 |
| 4 | West Virginia | #144 | 148 |
| 5 | Michigan | #141 | 729 |
| 6 | Iowa | #141 | 272 |
| 7 | Wisconsin | #141 | 438 |
| 8 | Indiana | #135 | 622 |
| 9 | Arkansas | #135 | 275 |
| 10 | Minnesota | #134 | 475 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Kai in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kaia | From The Earth | Female | Greek |
Looking for names like Kai?
A dedicated page with 60+ related names — spelling variants, rhymes, alliterations, same-origin matches, and shared meaning concepts — lives at its own URL so each kind of similarity gets a deeper treatment than fits here.
Compare Kai to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Kai against today's most popular boys-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).
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