The name Caitlyn is a modern spelling of Caitlin, an Irish name that ultimately goes back to the Greek Hekaterine. It could mean ‘each of the two’ or also ‘pure’. Another derivation from this Greek name is Catherine.
Caitlyn is a female first name. In very rare cases it is also used for boys.
The name Caitlyn isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all girls names, Caitlyn ranks 695. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 2 were named Caitlyn. In the entire USA, approximately 51,091 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Caitlyn. That is 0.02 % of all living Americans.
The name Caitlyn is a modern spelling of Caitlin, an Irish name that ultimately goes back to the Greek Hekaterine. It could mean ‘each of the two’ or also ‘pure’. Another derivation from this Greek name is Catherine.
The spelling Caitlyn... was introduced in the 1980s and quite popular around the year 2000.
Caitlyn is a phenomenon of Generation X and Y. Previously, the name wasn't really on the radar of expectant parents. Schoolkids of the early 20th century probably didn't have classmates named Caitlyn - until this very name unexpectedly cried out for attention and peaked in popularity at rank number 111 in 1998. Although it has never reached the top 100 list, this girls' name seems to have been in vogue for a while, which makes Caitlyn really in tune with her generation.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Caitlyn was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
121 babies were named Caitlyn in 2022 - that's 1 in 1,225,057 newborn girls. With this number, the girls' name Caitlyn ranked 1,549 in our SmartGenius first name statistics in 2022, the most recent year for which records are available.
The name Caitlyn may not be in the top rankings of the most popular girls’ names, but it is one of the few female given names, along with only 536 others, that can be found in every single state in the U.S. from Alaska to Florida and from California to New York. Of course, the name occurs more frequently in some states than in others – and Caitlyn is apparently especially popular in Delaware. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular women’s names here either, one in 1,491 women in Delaware is called Caitlyn. In total, that’s 200 women who feel addressed when the name Caitlyn is shouted loudly across Delaware and who ensure that their name makes it to #305 in our SmartGenius ranking of the most common female names in this nice state. If you asked all women in the entire U.S. for their first name, you would hear Caitlyn as the answer a total of 51,081 times. This places Caitlyn at #507 in our SmartGenius statistics for the most popular women’s names in the whole of the USA. This is true for all currently living women across all states and age groups – the recent popularity of the name Caitlyn as a baby name is, of course, a bit different, as you can see from the statistics above.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter C is a frequent initial letter for girls' names. This is because 6.0% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. The most common first letters of girls' names, by the way, are A, S and M.
With seven letters, the name Caitlyn has a typical length for first names in the US. In fact, 26% of all common first names consist of exactly seven letters. 52% of all first names are shorter, while 22% have eight letters or more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that with 6.0% of all girls' names that begin with a C, this first letter is much more common than the average of all letters. And which girls’ name beginning with C do you think is the most common in the US? The answer is... Carol.
If your name is Caitlyn and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name Caitlyn, you can simply say:
Cat
Apple
Igloo
Tiger
Lion
Yoyo
Nut
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Caitlyn
Caitlyn
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
C
A
I
T
L
Y
N
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
C
A
I
T
L
Y
N
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. Caitlyn sounds like this:
