Karleigh
Karleigh was given to 45 girls in 2025, #3,424 among girls’ names; 5,032 Americans have been recorded with it since 1983 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
An estimated 4,980 Americans named Karleigh and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 16 years old and half are between 10 and 23.
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Karleigh by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Karleigh mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Karleigh is “a female given name from the Germanic languages.”
A rare spelling variant of Carly.
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Karleigh?
#3,424 among girls’ names, 2025
Karleigh fell from #1,097 in 2015 to #3,424 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born fell from 0.13 to 0.03 per 1,000.
237 babies in 2016, the peak
Karleigh peaked in 2016, when 237 girls were given it, #1,090 among girls’ names. The 45 births of 2025 are 19% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 45 | #3,424 | 0.03 |
| 2024 | 52 | #3,100 | 0.03 |
| 2023 | 84 | #2,239 | 0.05 |
| 2022 | 89 | #2,150 | 0.05 |
| 2021 | 118 | #1,744 | 0.07 |
| 2020 | 156 | #1,403 | 0.10 |
| 2019 | 164 | #1,376 | 0.10 |
| 2018 | 179 | #1,282 | 0.11 |
| 2017 | 183 | #1,288 | 0.11 |
| 2016 | 237 | #1,090 | 0.13 |
Every recorded year (43)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per 1,000 girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 236 | #1,097 | 0.13 |
| 2014 | 230 | #1,107 | 0.13 |
| 2013 | 236 | #1,052 | 0.13 |
| 2012 | 210 | #1,172 | 0.12 |
| 2011 | 225 | #1,094 | 0.13 |
| 2010 | 227 | #1,097 | 0.13 |
| 2009 | 186 | #1,302 | 0.10 |
| 2008 | 213 | #1,195 | 0.11 |
| 2007 | 199 | #1,245 | 0.10 |
| 2006 | 161 | #1,407 | 0.08 |
| 2005 | 160 | #1,359 | 0.09 |
| 2004 | 154 | #1,367 | 0.08 |
| 2003 | 151 | #1,344 | 0.08 |
| 2002 | 135 | #1,420 | 0.08 |
| 2001 | 127 | #1,481 | 0.07 |
| 2000 | 111 | #1,592 | 0.06 |
| 1999 | 90 | #1,773 | 0.05 |
| 1998 | 94 | #1,694 | 0.05 |
| 1997 | 87 | #1,750 | 0.05 |
| 1996 | 58 | #2,294 | 0.03 |
| 1995 | 84 | #1,737 | 0.05 |
| 1994 | 67 | #2,068 | 0.04 |
| 1993 | 56 | #2,298 | 0.03 |
| 1992 | 63 | #2,136 | 0.03 |
| 1991 | 56 | #2,303 | 0.03 |
| 1990 | 18 | #5,159 | 0.01 |
| 1989 | 18 | #4,935 | 0.01 |
| 1988 | 20 | #4,384 | 0.01 |
| 1987 | 18 | #4,560 | 0.01 |
| 1986 | 13 | #5,586 | 0.01 |
| 1985 | 11 | #6,224 | 0.01 |
| 1984 | 6 | #9,670 | under 0.01 |
| 1983 | 5 | #11,022 | under 0.01 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Karleigh a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Karleigh has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 43 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Karleigh: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Karleigh, and how old are they?
4,980 alive in 2026, estimated
That is 99% of the 5,032 Americans ever recorded as Karleigh. The median Karleigh alive today is 16 years old; half are between 10 and 23.
The 2020 Census counted 3,844 people named Karleigh (3,842 women and girls, 2 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 4,489 born in the U.S. The Census count is 14% below that prediction. Possible reasons: people who give a short form or another name to the Census, and a survival estimate that can run high.
Alive today, by age
Alive today, by generation
| Generation | Born | Alive |
|---|---|---|
| Millennials | 1981-1996 | 482 |
| Generation Z | 1997-2012 | 2,510 |
| Generation Alpha | 2013-2025 | 2,000 |
An estimate, not a count. SSA’s files count people born in the United States who received a Social Security number, so anyone born abroad is not in them; before 1937 most people got a number as adults, and their survival is counted from that age.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Where are babies named Karleigh born?
| State | Births 2025 | Rank, girls | vs. national |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas | 7 | #2,775 | 0.9× |
Where Karleigh is more common than its national share predicts
Relative to its national share, Karleigh is most over-represented in Mississippi: since 1983 it was given 3.6 times as often there as its national share each year would predict.
States: SSA state file, 1910-2025, published May 8, 2026; births count girls and boys together, and the rank is among girls’ names in the state in 2025. The file leaves out any state and year with fewer than 5 babies of the name, so small states are undercounted; each ratio compares the state’s births of Karleigh with the births its national share predicts year by year, for states with at least 100 births of the name.
Names spelled alike
Of these 3 names spelled alike, given to 11,198 babies since 1880, Karleigh is the second most given (45% of them). In 2025 it was given to 45 of their 112 babies (40%), again the second most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Karleigh
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Karleigh and names like it
- Compare Karleigh and CarleighBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sKarleigh peaked in 2016.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Karleigh since 1910.
- Germanic namesWiktionary’s origin for Karleigh: every such name, by how often it is given.
- The top names of 2016The year the most babies were named Karleigh.
- The names of Generation ZMost people named Karleigh alive today were born 1997-2012.
- Names starting with KMost given first.