Kimberly goes back to a town in South Africa named after ‘Lord Kimberley’, a 19th century British aristocrat. The name is a combination of the Old English words ‘cyneburg’ meaning ‘royal fortress’ and ‘leah’ meaning ‘wood’ or ‘clearing’.
Kimberly is a first name typically given to girls, but in rare cases also used as a boys name.
The name Kimberly 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, Kimberly ranks 132. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn girls, approximately 14 were named Kimberly. In total, there are currently 838,963 people – children, adults and seniors – named Kimberly living in the United States, which is approximately 0.25 % of the entire population.
Kimberly goes back to a town in South Africa named after ‘Lord Kimberley’, a 19th century British aristocrat. The name is a combination of the Old English words ‘cyneburg’ meaning ‘royal fortress’ and ‘leah’ meaning ‘wood’ or ‘clearing’.
What is a fortress? A fortress is a large building or group of buildings, designed to protect and defend against enemy attack. Ancient fortifications were built with earthworks and stone walls.
Who would have thought it? After many years of not appearing at all in the SmartGenius statistics, Kimberly reached its highest rank ever in the year 1967 at #2. In other words: 33,217 newborn girls were named Kimberly that year. Since then, it has been considered to be a universally popular name, chosen by a large number of happy parents every year. Although the times of its highest popularity are now many decades ago, Kimberly is still going strong and has not been forgotten yet. We can only wait and see if there will be a new surprise in store and if Kimberly will be able to top its all-time best ranking ever again.
In years where the graph has no value, the name Kimberly was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
In 2022, Kimberly ranked 202 in our SmartGenius statistics. In absolute figures, this means it was given to baby girls a total of 1,384 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 Kimberly will remain a universally popular name.
Wherever you go, wherever you live – there’s a good chance to meet Kimberly. Because: There are women and girls named Kimberly in every state in the USA. This may sound quite unspectacular at first, but in fact, of the more than 50,000 different female first names that occur in the USA, just 537 are recorded in each individual state, so the name Kimberly is definitely something very special. In some regions it even makes it into the top 100 of the most popular female first names, for example in California, where Kimberly ranks on place 12. The greatest chance of meeting Kimberly, however, is in Delaware, where one in 116 girls and women bears this beautiful name – that is far above average – in the entire USA it is only one in 184 women and girls and in Wisconsin, where the name is least represented in relation to the population, you even have to ask an average of 249 women and girls for their name before you once get Kimberly as an answer.
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 eight letters, the name Kimberly is long compared to other names. In fact, 14.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly eight letters. 78% of all first names are shorter, while only 8% of all boys’ and girls’ names use nine letters or even more. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long with 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 Kimberly 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 Kimberly, you can simply say:
Koala
Igloo
Mouse
Butterfly
Elephant
Rocket
Lion
Yoyo
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
Kimberly
Kimberly
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
K
I
M
B
E
R
L
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
I
M
B
E
R
L
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. Kimberly sounds like this:
