Kaitlyn

Where the name comes from

• English (American)
  A modern American spelling of Caitlin. It has no separate meaning of its own.
  Caitlin, from Irish Caitlín
  Caitlin is an English spelling of the Irish name behind Kathleen. That name was itself a form of Catherine. Caitlin was rare in the US until about 1985, when it suddenly became popular. Kaitlyn is one of several spellings that spread during that boom. US birth records count Caitlin, Caitlyn, Kaitlin, Kaitlyn, Kaitlynn, Katelyn and Katelynn as separate names.
• Irish
  The Irish form of Catherine, also written in English as Kathleen.
  Caitilín / Caitlín, a variant of Caitrín (Catherine)
  An Irish name scholar writing in 1923 listed Caitilín as the Irish form behind Kathleen and Catherine. He compared it with Spanish Catalina and Hungarian Katalin.
• Greek
  Origin uncertain.
  Aikaterinē (Catherine)
  The name came into English through French Catherine, Medieval Latin Katerina and Latin Ecaterina, from Greek Aikaterinē. The meaning "pure" is popular, not proven. It comes from a folk link to the Greek word katharos (pure). In the 1500s, that link added the "h" to spellings like Katherine.

Kaitlyn across traditions

• United States. Kaitlyn was a signature girls' name of the late 1980s through the early 2000s. Its peak decade was the 2000s, when it ranked #35 among US girls' names (SSA). It ranked #48 in the 1990s.
• Irish. The name goes back to the Irish Caitlín, the source of the long-familiar English name Kathleen.
• Christian. The root name, Catherine, spread widely in the Middle Ages because of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
• Spanish and Latin American. Kaitlyn has no Spanish spelling of its own. The Spanish form of its root name, Catherine, is Catalina. Catalina shows up in Spanish records more than 500 years ago.

Who carried it

• Saint Catherine of Alexandria (about 1,700 years ago (legendary)): A Christian martyr whose legend made the root name, Catherine, popular across medieval Europe. Historians doubt that she was a real person.

Forms in other languages

Caitlin, Caitlyn, Kaitlin, Kaitlynn, Katelyn, Katelynn, Kathleen, Caitlín, Catherine, Catalina

Kaitlyn in letter-number systems

Hebrew, Greek and other traditions gave every letter a number, and read meaning into the totals. These are the counts, computed; the readings are inside the Innerverse.