Kelsey is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Kelsey 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, Kelsey ranks 370. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 5 were named Kelsey. In the entire USA, approximately 149,356 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name Kelsey. That is 0.04 % of all living Americans.
The origins of Kelsey are not entirely clear. It could derive from the Old English given name Ceolsige, which meant ‘ship’s victory’, or it could be a place name meaning ‘Cenel’s island’. It combines ‘cenel’ meaning ‘fierce’, and ‘eg’ meaning island.
From about 1970... until 2000, Kelsey was also rarely given to boys.
This was a real surprise! Kelsey is a name that has been around for a long time, but only really took off at the end of the 20th century. According to our SmartGenius statistics, it reached its highest rank at #22 in the year 1992, when 11,882 parents chose this name for their newborn daughter. This made Kelsey much more popular than in previous generations, where it was so rare for several years that it was not even recorded in the statistics. Now, this name seems to have found its place and has established itself in the beginning of the 21st century as well.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Kelsey was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, Kelsey ranked 551 in our SmartGenius statistics. In absolute figures, this means it was given to baby girls a total of 489 times. No one knows what names (or combinations of numbers and letters) will be popular 50 years from now, but given its consistent popularity, there is a good chance that Kelsey will remain a universally popular name.
The name Kelsey 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 Kelsey is apparently especially popular in Alaska. Although the name is not one of the top 100 most popular women’s names here either, one in 379 women in Alaska is called Kelsey. In total, that’s 502 women who feel addressed when the name Kelsey is shouted loudly across Alaska and who ensure that their name makes it to #110 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 Kelsey as the answer a total of 147,384 times. This places Kelsey at #240 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 Kelsey 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 K is a real popular first letter for girls' names. That’s because 7.5% of all common girls’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letters A, S and M are more common for girls' names.
With six letters, the name Kelsey is of average length. In fact, 28% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly six letters. 24% of all first names are shorter, while 48% have seven 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 if 7.5% of all girls' names start with a K, this initial letter occurs more than twice as often as all 26 letters on average. Interesting detail: of all the girls' names that begin with a K, Karen is the most common.
If your name is Kelsey 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 Kelsey, you can simply say:
Koala
Elephant
Lion
Sun
Elephant
Yoyo
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Kelsey
Kelsey
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
K
E
L
S
E
Y
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.
K
E
L
S
E
Y
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. Kelsey sounds like this:
