Calais

girls:

173 births since 1984

#5543 (3rd percentile)

boys:

72 births since 2017

#4514 (2nd percentile)

overall:

245 births since 1984

#7494 (3rd percentile)

Popularity Trends

The name Calais is the #7,494 most popular name of all time in the U.S. on a gender-neutral basis, with a total of 245 recorded births since 1984. This represents the 3.1% percentile of name popularity (more popular than 3.1% of all names). For girls, it ranks #5,543 (3.0% percentile) for all time with 173 births since 1984. For boys, it ranks #4,514 (1.5% percentile) for all time with 72 births since 2017.

Calais first appeared in U.S. birth records in 1984 (1984 for girls and 2017 for boys). Birth data for Calais is available in 27 out of the 40 years between 1984 and 2023 (24 years for girls and 7 years for boys). The Social Security Administration only reports birth data for years in which the name was given to at least five children of the same gender.

The name Calais has been given predominantly to girls, with 70.6% of all recorded births being female. In 2023, 0.0% of babies named Calais were girls. Interestingly, until around 2019, the name was more popular for girls (90.2% girls from 1984 to 2018), but since then it has been more commonly used for boys (77.5% boys from 2019 to 2023).

For girls, Calais reached its peak popularity in 1985, achieving the 0.9% percentile (ranked #793) with 6 births per million. The name was most common in 2010, with 7 births per million (ranked 0.8% percentile). There have been no recorded female births with this name since 2022.

For boys, Calais reached its peak popularity in 2019, achieving the 1.1% percentile (ranked #907) with 8 births per million. The name was most common in 2019, with 8 births per million (ranked 1.1% percentile). Over the past 5 years, the popularity of this name for boys has been increasing. Currently, Calais ranks #908 for boys (0.3% percentile) with 4 births per million, which is 56.0% of its peak share of births.

This chart shows the total number of births per million babies in each year for the name "Calais".

1984 2023 19842023

Key Statistics

Total Births
173
Peak Births
13
Peak Year
1985
First Recorded
1984
Peak Percentile
0.9%
Current Percentile
Peak Rank
#793
Current Rank
Female statistics
Total Births
72
Peak Births
15
Peak Year
2019
First Recorded
2017
Peak Percentile
1.1%
Current Percentile
0.3%
Peak Rank
#907
Current Rank
#908
Male statistics

How to Pronounce Calais

Our model has identified 4 different pronunciations for the name Calais. Click the play button under each pronunciation to hear it spoken aloud.

Our model is 48.3% confident that Calais is pronounced as kuh-LAY, which has 2 syllables. The next most likely pronunciation is KA-lay, at 29.3% confidence, with 2 syllables.

2
48.3%
2
29.3%
2
17.2%
2
5.2%
KA-lay (2 syllables)
29.3% confidence
K AE1 L EY0
KA-LAY (2 syllables)
17.2% confidence
K AE1 L EY1
KA-lihs (2 syllables)
5.2% confidence
K AE1 L IH0 S

Possible Additional Pronunciations

If none of the pronunciations above sound right to you, could you please check whether any of these related pronunciations should be applied to the name Calais? These are pronunciations that other similar names use, but which are not currently associated with Calais. If you think any of these are valid pronunciations for Calais, please vote using the thumbs up button.

About Pronunciation Data

Our confidence scores estimate the likelihood that a particular pronunciation is the most correct for a given name spelling. These scores are derived from pronunciation dictionaries, manual verification, your feedback, and a fine-tuned large language model trained to generate name pronunciations.

For any given spelling, confidence scores across all identified pronunciations sum to 100%. However, these scores don't account for the possibility of valid pronunciations that our model hasn't identified.

The raw pronunciations shown (like K AH0 L EY1) use the ARPAbet phoneme system, a standardized way to represent English speech sounds. Each symbol represents a distinct sound in American English. Visit the ARPAbet Wikipedia page to learn more about these phonetic symbols.

Pronunciation audio is generated by an open source text to speech model that has been customized to adhere to pronunciations provided in ARPAbet format, but sometimes pronunciations that differ subtly will sound identical, particularly if the only difference is the level of emphasis on a syllable or a single vowel sound.

© 2025 NamePlay.org

Made with ❤️ by Aaron J Becker