Boy Names Starting With K

Ranks are each name's overall position among all 2025 boy names, so the gaps between rows are real — the names in between simply start with other letters. Want a random shortlist instead? Spin K boy names in the generator, or browse the full top 100 boy names.

How common K names are

Measured by births, K is the 11th initial of 26 for boys in 2025: its 74 names inside the top 1,000 add up to 4.0% of that list's births. From Kai at overall #93 (3,768 births) down to Kylian, the 50th name, at #624 (448), the first count on the table is 8.4 times the last.

That 4.0% is K's births inside the 2025 top 1,000 divided by the births of all 1,000 names — the convention the reading ranks and counts guide walks through — and the 74-name count is taken at that same depth, not at the 50-name depth of the table above.

K names across the decades

In 1955, 9 boy names starting with K sat inside the top 200, led by Kenneth (#15); in 2015 the count was 11, led by Kevin (#79). The largest of the 7 counts is 11 (2015) and the smallest is 4 (1995). Cut to the same top-200 depth, the 2025 list holds 3 K names, led by Kai at #93. 3 different names hold the lead across those snapshots: Kenneth, Kevin, and Kyle. 2 of the 50 names on the 2025 table appear in every one of the 7 snapshot top-200 lists: Kevin and Kenneth.

K names held 3.7% of the top-200 births for boys in 1955 and 2.9% in 2015; at the same depth in 2025 the figure is 0.92%. The first-letter trends guide sets K's share beside the other 25 initials for every snapshot year from 1955 to 2015, for both sexes.

Faded and new

Set the 2025 table against the 7 snapshots and 9 names drop out — each inside a snapshot's top 200, none on this year's top 50: Keith (1955–1995, best #35 in 1965), Kristopher (1975, 1985, best #134 in 1985), Kelly (1965, 1975, best #136 in 1965), Kurt (1955, 1965, best #112 in 1965), Karl (1955, 1965, best #149 in 1955), Kirk (1955, 1965, best #152 in 1965), Kent (1955, 1965, best #156 in 1955), Kerry (1955, 1965, best #174 in 1955), and Kim (1955, best #98 in 1955). The years in parentheses are the snapshot years whose top 200 included the name; the most recent of them to chart is Keith, in 1995.

Of the 50 names above, 39 appear in none of the 7 snapshot top-200 lists: the first 12 by rank are Knox (#196), Kairo (#226), Kyrie (#244), Kayson (#264), Koa (#269), Kash (#286), Kohen (#296), Kade (#349), Kaizen (#364), Kyaire (#367), Kayce (#375), and Khalil (#384), and the remaining 27 follow in the table above.

Absence is relative to the committed depth: the snapshot files stop at rank 200 and the 2025 letter file stops at K's 50th name (#624), so a faded name may still be registered in 2025 below that point, and a newcomer may have been registered in a snapshot year below rank 200.

Shape of the list

2 of the 50 names on the 2025 list run to eight letters or more (Kingston, for one), 15 stop at four or fewer (Kai, for one), and the remaining 33 sit in the five-to-seven-letter middle (Kayden, for one). The longest spellings on the 2025 list, at 8 letters, are Kingston and Kendrick; the shortest, at 3, are Kai and Koa.

By popularity tier, the list holds 0 top-10 names, 1 more inside the top 100, 35 in the 101–500 band, and 14 in the 501–1,000 band; none sit past #1,000, so every name on the list is inside the top-1,000 pool the generator's 2025 era draws from.

K gives the two sexes no shared spelling at these depths: none of this list's 50 names is among the 50 on the 2025 girls' K page. 21 of the 50 spellings on the 2025 list open Ka-, the letter's most common second letter, ahead of Ky- (10), and 8 different second letters appear across the list.

K boy names: questions answered from the data

Other letters

Girl names for this letter: girl names starting with K.

Source: every name, rank, and count on this page comes from the U.S. Social Security Administration's national baby-names dataset (2025 data, from Social Security card applications). It is public-domain U.S. government data; names given fewer than 5 times in a year are excluded by the SSA, spelling variants are counted separately, and the data covers U.S. births only. Full caveats on the methodology page.