Caitlin
Caitlin is a girl's name that peaked in 1988, when it was the 44th most popular in the United States. In 2025 it ranked 2,326th. About 110,000 Caitlins are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 32.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Caitlin boys named Caitlin
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 112,426
- Estimated living today
- 110,000
- Median age today
- 32
- Peak year
- 1988
- Best rank
- 44th
- Rank in 2025
- 2,326th
- First recorded
- 1955
- Girls / boys
- 112,143 / 283
How old the living Caitlins are
born that year still alive today
Of the 112,426 babies given the name since 1955, about 110,000 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 8,100 of them are children and 50 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1993 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Irish
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Caitlins
- Caitlin Moran (born 1975)English author and broadcaster
- Caitlin Clark (born 2002)American basketball player
- Caitlin Foord (born 1994)Australian soccer player
- Caitlin Stasey (born 1990)Australian actress and singer
- Caitlin FitzGerald (born 1983)American actress
- Caitlín R. Kiernan (born 1964)writer
- Caitlin Leverenz (born 1991)American swimmer, Olympic bronze medalist
- Caitlin Carver (born 1992)American actress
People named Caitlin with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Caitlin is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Caitlin is most concentrated in New Hampshire (2.5×), Alaska (2.1×), Connecticut (2.0×), Massachusetts (2.0×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1988
The most popular girls’ names the year Caitlin peaked:
Caitlin elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| England and Wales girls | Caitlin | 28,964 | 22nd |
| Scotland girls | Caitlin | 6,986 | 6th |
| New Zealand girls | Caitlin | 3,370 | 11th |
| Northern Ireland girls | Caitlin | 2,909 | 4th |
| Ireland girls | Caitlin +1 spelling | 2,884 | 31st |
| Belgium girls | Caitlin | 678 | 182nd |
| France girls | Caitlin | 390 | 836th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Caitlin: rank by region
In 2019, Caitlin was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Caitlin | 635 | 7 |
In 2019, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Caitlin appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (327th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Caitlin among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland girls | Caitlin | 22 | 40 |
A count of people on a register – Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Related names
Caitlin against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.