Cayleigh

Meaning & origin

Cayleigh entered the U.S. baby name scene in 1986, a late entrant in the wave of creative -leigh spellings. It achieved its highest rank of 1,709 in 2009, when roughly 1 in 14,000 girls were named Cayleigh, but has since fallen steeply, dropping to rank 4,878 by 2024 with a 1-in-59,528 frequency. The name is concentrated in the southern and western United States, though no single state stands out as a top state. As a modern invention, Cayleigh lacks deep historical roots but fits a pattern of phonetically driven coinages that appealed to parents in the 2000s. Its trajectory mirrors that of similar names like Kaylee and Caylee: a rapid rise in the early 2000s followed by a steady decline since 2010. While never reaching the top 1,000, Cayleigh represents a distinct spelling variant that has maintained a small but consistent presence for nearly four decades.

Cayleigh is a modern American coinage, formed by blending the sound of names like Kaylee or Caylee with the popular -leigh suffix (from Old English lēah 'clearing, meadow'). It first appeared in the 1980s and gained modest popularity in the 2000s, peaking in 2009. The name has no traditional etymology and is best described as a creative respelling of Kaylee.