Cal — #670 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Cal

The Social Security Administration has registered 7,303 babies named Cal between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Cal currently holds the #670 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 2024, when 408 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Cal performed strongest in the 2020s, accumulating 1,622 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Cal shows a stable profile with only moderate drift from its peak decade. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in California, which accounts for 583 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by Texas and Wisconsin. In total, SSA state-level files list Cal in 38 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Cal in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 7,303 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.