Kelly

Where Kelly comes from

Borrowed from Irish Ó Ceallaigh. Doublet of Kellogg and Callahan.
— Wiktionary's entry for Kelly
  • From a surname
  • 2 syllables
  • Vowel-ended
Along the way
  1. 1907
    First appearance
    #2,061 among girls, 5 babies — the first year at least five got the name.
  2. 1957
    Mostly girls from here
    Until now more boys than girls got the name; from this year it's the other way round, and has stayed that way.
  3. 1962
    Kelly Preston born
    American actress
  4. 1977
    Peak, #10
    18,234 babies named Kelly — more than any year before or since.
  5. 1982
    Kelly Clarkson born
    American singer-songwriter
  6. 1988
    The fade
    The first year with half the peak's births — down to #32.
In the dictionary
  • A unisex given name transferred from the surname.
  • A male given name transferred from the surname.
  • A female given name transferred from the surname, popular from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Namesakes
  • Kelly Clarkson · American singer-songwriter, born 1982
  • Kelly Preston · American actress, 1962–2020
  • Kelly Brook · British actress and model, born 1979
  • Kelly Macdonald · Scottish actress, born 1976
  • Kelly Hu · American actress, born 1968

Sources: the origin note and dictionary entry are quoted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0); the namesakes come from Wikidata (CC0); the milestones are worked out from the SSA record.