How popular is the baby name Kayleigh in the United States right now? How popular was it historically? Use the popularity graph and data table below to find out! Plus, see all the blog posts that mention the name Kayleigh.
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The song “Kayleigh” (1985) by British rock band Marillion.
Several of the band’s singles had done well in the UK up to that point, but the rock ballad “Kayleigh” was their first (and, so far, only) song to reach the U.S. Hot 100, peaking at #74 in late October, 1985.
The lead singer of the band had written the song with several past girlfriends in mind, but the name of the song was inspired by one woman in particular. He explained:
I’d wanted to write a song about a girlfriend I’d split up with, whose name was Kay. Which of course we couldn’t do. So we added her middle name, Lee, and it became Kayleigh instead. […] But it wasn’t just about Kay, it was inspired by three or four different people in my life.
Interestingly, the entire Kaylee name-group was already on the rise before the song was released in mid-1985. For instance, the most popular spelling of the name, Kaylee — which ultimately peaked at 26th in 2009 — jumped well into the top 1,000 (824th) in 1984. The same year, the spelling Kaylie was the 25th-fastest rising girl name (relatively speaking), and girl-name debuts included Caylie, Caleigh, Cayley, Kailie, and Cailey — not to mention Kayleigh itself.
So the song didn’t exactly kick things off. No doubt it contributed to the name’s trendiness, though. It does seem to have given a discernible boost to the spellings Kaleigh, Kalee, Kalie, Kaeleigh, and Kaileigh. And it may have been behind the debut of Cayleigh in 1986.
So…why was the Kaylee name-group already picking up stream in 1984? I don’t know for certain, but I can point to a couple of possible contributing factors:
The trendiness of Kayla in the early ’80s, due largely to a soap opera character: Kayla Brady from Days of Our Lives.
The trendiness of Ashley in the early ’80s, due in part to another soap opera character: Ashley Abbott from The Young and the Restless.
What are your thoughts on the baby name Kayleigh? (Do you like this spelling, or do you prefer one of the other spellings?)
P.S. Marillion’s 2nd-biggest song, “Lavender” (1985) — which was the track right after “Kayleigh” on the Misplaced Childhood album — may have given the baby name Lavender a nudge in the mid-’80s.
P.P.S. The band’s name, pronounced mar-IH-lee-un, was based on the title of the novel The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.
If you’re on the hunt for baby names with a numerological value of 6, you’re in luck! Because today’s post features hundreds of 6-names.
Before we get to the names, though — how do we know that they’re “sixes” in numerology?
Turning names into numbers
Here’s how to calculate the numerological value of a name.
First, for each letter, come up with a number to represent that letter’s position in the alphabet. (Letter A would be number 1, letter B would be number 2, and so forth.) Then, add all the numbers together. If the sum has two or more digits, add the digits together recursively until the result is a single digit. That single digit is the name’s numerological value.
For instance, the letters in the name Weston correspond to the numbers 23, 5, 19, 20, 15, and 14. The sum of these numbers is 96. The digits of 96 added together equal 15, and the digits of 15 added together equal 6 — the numerological value of Weston.
Baby names with a value of 6
Below you’ll find the most popular 6-names per gender, according to the latest U.S. baby name data. I’ve further sub-categorized them by total sums — just in case any of those larger numbers are significant to anyone.
6
The letters in the following baby names add up to 6.
Girl name (6)
Boy names (6)
Ada
Abba, Baba
6 via 15
The letters in the following baby names add up to 15, which reduces to six (1+5=6).
Girl names (6 via 15)
Boy names (6 via 15)
Aida, Alaa, Adia, An, Ama
Jad, Aadi, Gabe, An, Ej
6 via 24
The letters in the following baby names add up to 24, which reduces to six (2+4=6).
There’s no definitive answer, unfortunately, because various numerological systems exist, and each one has its own interpretation of the number six. That said, if we look at a couple of modern numerology/astrology websites, we see 6 being described as “harmonious,” “loving,” “stable,” “compassionate,” and “responsible.”
We can also look at associations, which are a bit more concrete. Here are some things that are associated with the number 6:
Snowflake (six-fold symmetry)
Beehive (six-sided cells)
Guitar (6 strings)
Football (6 points for a touchdown)
Ice hockey (6 players per side, including the goalie)
Cube (six faces)
Six degrees of separation (the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from one other)
What does the number 6 mean to you? What are your strongest associations with the number?
P.S. To see names with other numerological values, check out the posts for the numbers one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, and nine.
So today let’s check out another fun set of “top” names: the top rises. The names below are those that increased the most in usage, percentage-wise, from one year to the next according to the SSA data.
Here’s the format: Girl names are on the left, boy names are on the right, and the percentages represent single-year jumps in usage. (For example, from 1880 to 1881, usage of the girl name Isa grew 240% and usage of the boy name Noble grew 333%.)
The SSA data isn’t perfect, but it does get a lot more accurate starting in the late 1930s, because “many people born before 1937 never applied for a Social Security card, so their names are not included in our data” (SSA). Now, back to the list…
(Did you catch all the doubles? Tula, Delano, Tammy, Jermaine, and Davey/Davy.)
I’ve already written about some of the names above (click the links to see the posts) and I plan to write about many of the others. In the meanwhile, though, feel free to beat me to it! Leave a comment and let us know what popularized Dorla in 1929, or Dustin in 1968, or Talan in 2005…
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