Kailey
- Pronunciation
- [Kai-ley]
- Gender
- Female
- Meaning
- Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure.
- Origin
- English
About the Name Kailey
Kailey is recorded as a variant of Kay and Kayla, carrying the meaning "keeper of the keys" or "pure" — the latter connecting it to the Katherine root via the Greek katharos meaning "pure," while "keeper of the keys" reflects an older folk-etymology association with the Old French clef tradition attached to Kay-family names. As a spelling variant, Kailey belongs to a remarkably large cluster of phonetically similar names built on the Kay-/Kai-/Hay-/Kay-lee sound template: Records indicate no fewer than twenty-four related forms including Kailee, Kayleigh, Kayley, Kaylie, Kaleigh, and many others. This proliferation is a hallmark of the late-twentieth-century American naming practice of treating phonetic templates as customisable orthographic fields.
Kailey's sound — two syllables, bright opening diphthong, liquid -ley ending — sits in the same sonic family as Bailey, Hayley, Riley, and Hailey, all of which rode the same broad wave of breezy, meadow-and-place-surname names that dominated female naming charts from the 1990s through the 2010s. The name feels simultaneously fresh and familiar, drawing on a well-loved phonetic pattern while offering a spelling that distinguishes it from the most common forms.
Kailey first entered the US Social Security top-1000 in 2000 and peaked at #228 in 2004, accumulating 18,582 top-1000 births before dropping out of the charts after 2021, when it ranked #961 with 271 births. The recorded variant forms are extensive: Caileigh, Cailey, Cailie, Caleigh, Caley, Callie, Cayleigh, Kaelee, Kaeleigh, Kaeley, Kaeli, Kaelie, Kailee, Kaili, Kalee, Kaleigh, Kaley, Kalie, Kayla, Kaylea, Kaylei, Kayleigh, Kayley, Kayli, and Kaylie.
Source: U.S. Social Security Administration name data, 1880–2024 (methodology). By Marvin Tang.
Quick Facts About Kailey
US Popularity History (2000–2021)
Annual US births named Kailey by gender, from US Social Security Administration records. Peak year: 2004 with 1,439 girls named Kailey (girl rank #228 that year).
Where it stands today: in 2021, ranked #961 for girls (271 US births). That's 733 places below its 2004 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 Kailey Most Popular?
Average girl-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 girls-name rankings — a per-capita measure that isn't biased toward large states. For Kailey the strongest states are Mississippi, Connecticut, Louisiana.
Strongest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mississippi | #440 | 45 |
| 2 | Connecticut | #510 | 29 |
| 3 | Louisiana | #534 | 62 |
| 4 | Alabama | #589 | 49 |
| 5 | South Carolina | #595 | 31 |
| 6 | New Jersey | #676 | 82 |
| 7 | Georgia | #676 | 113 |
| 8 | California | #736 | 472 |
| 9 | Indiana | #743 | 37 |
| 10 | Florida | #752 | 209 |
Weakest girls-name states
| # | State | Avg rank | Births |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ohio | #1,027 | 28 |
| 2 | Pennsylvania | #946 | 38 |
| 3 | Washington | #854 | 23 |
| 4 | Michigan | #853 | 55 |
| 5 | Colorado | #843 | 19 |
| 6 | North Carolina | #834 | 66 |
| 7 | Wisconsin | #832 | 17 |
| 8 | Tennessee | #810 | 51 |
| 9 | New York | #787 | 186 |
| 10 | Maryland | #781 | 42 |
Source: SSA state-level baby-name dataset 2016–2025. States with fewer than 3 years of data for Kailey in this window are excluded. Births < 5 in a given state-year are suppressed by SSA for privacy.
Variant Forms
| Name | Meaning | Gender | Origin |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caileigh | Female | English | |
| Cailey | "Lark, Musical One." | Female | Greek |
| Cailie | Female | English | |
| Caleigh | Pure | Female | English |
| Caley | Slender | Male | Gaelic |
| Callie | Lark | Female | English |
| Cayleigh | Pure Meadow: Party: Slender: | Female | English |
| Kaelee | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaeleigh | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaeley | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaeli | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaelie | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kailee | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaili | Name Of A Deity | Male | Hawaiian |
| Kalee | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaleigh | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaley | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kalie | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kayla | Variant Of Kay. Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. Also Kayla Is A Character On Daytime TV Days Of Our Lives. | Female | English |
| Kaylea | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaylei | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kayleigh | Warrior | Female | Scottish |
| Kayley | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kayli | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
| Kaylie | Variant Of Kay And Kayla Keeper Of The Keys: Pure. | Female | English |
Looking for names like Kailey?
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 Kailey to Other Popular Names
Side-by-side popularity charts and crossover years for Kailey against today's most popular girls-name peers (top 8 by US births in the last 10 years of SSA records).