Kendall
Valley in the Kent region of England.
Name Census estimates that about 95,019 living Americans carry the first name Kendall. It sits at #310 in the overall ranking, outside the top 50 but still well-represented. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 65.1% of registrations being female. The average person named Kendall today is around 27 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Kendall births was 2011 (3,004 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Kendall. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Kendall with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Kendall started out as a boys' name but over the decades crossed over and is now given to girls far more often.
People living today
95K
~ 1 in 3,607 Americans
Peak year
2011
3,004 babies that year
Average age
27
years old
2024 SSA rank
#310
Tracked since 1906
Census
Kendall in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 83,080 people with the first name Kendall, which placed it at #638 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#638
National first-name rank
People counted
83K
83,080 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
27.5
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
68.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Kendall
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kendall is White at 68.9%. The next largest groups are Black (19.2%) and Two or More Races (5.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Kendall described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Kendall at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White68.9% · 57,248
- Black or African American19.2% · 15,941
- Two or more races5.2% · 4,326
- Hispanic or Latino4.7% · 3,913
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.2% · 983
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.8% · 669
Gender
Gender distribution for Kendall
Kendall is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 100,779 total registrations, 35,186 (34.9%) were male and 65,593 (65.1%) were female.
Kendall as a male name
- Ranked #1,231 in 2024
- 162 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1993 (965 births)
Kendall as a female name
- Ranked #310 in 2024
- 985 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2012 (2,625 births)
2020 Census snapshot
The 2020 Census sex table shows Kendall on both sides of the split. Of the 83,086 people counted with this name, 26,747 were male (32.2%) and 56,339 were female (67.8%).
Popularity
Kendall: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Kendall from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2000s, with 26,057 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 2000s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Kendall by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Kendall during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Kendalls live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. Texas, California, Illinois recorded the most babies named Kendall, while Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,829 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Kendall
The given name Kendall has its origins in the Old English language, deriving from the words "cyne" meaning "royal" and "dæl" meaning "valley". It was originally a surname referring to a person who lived in the royal valley or a valley belonging to the king.
During the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain, which lasted from the 5th to the 11th centuries, the name was used as a locational surname. It referred to people who resided in the valley owned by the monarch or in a royal valley under the king's jurisdiction.
The earliest recorded mention of the name Kendall can be traced back to the Domesday Book, a manuscript record of landholdings and resources in England, compiled in 1086 on the orders of William the Conqueror. It mentions several individuals with the surname Kendall, indicating its use as a locational name during that time.
One of the earliest known individuals with the given name Kendall was Kendall Wroot, an English landowner and knight who lived in the late 13th century. He was a prominent figure in Lincolnshire and served as a member of parliament for the county.
Another notable figure was Kendall Greenwood, a 16th-century English merchant and explorer. He was part of an expedition to the West Indies in the 1560s and helped establish trade routes between England and the Caribbean.
In the 17th century, Kendall Harding was a well-known English playwright and poet. He wrote several popular plays and poems during the Jacobean era, including "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "The Taming of the Shrew".
During the American Revolutionary War, Kendall Cooley was a patriot and soldier who fought in the Continental Army. He participated in several major battles, including the Battle of Monmouth and the Battle of Yorktown.
In the 19th century, Kendall Jenner was a renowned American artist and painter. He is best known for his landscape paintings of the American West and his depictions of Native American life and culture.
Over time, the name Kendall transitioned from being used primarily as a surname to becoming a popular given name for both males and females. Its meaning and association with royalty and nobility have contributed to its enduring appeal as a first name.
People
Kendall + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Kendall as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with K
Other first names starting with K with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Kendall: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Kendall?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 95,019 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Kendall going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 3,607 US residents.
Is Kendall a common name?
We classify Kendall as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 100,779 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Kendall most popular?
The single biggest year for Kendall was 2011, when 3,004 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Kendall is about 27 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Kendall in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 83,080 people with the name Kendall, or 27.51 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #638 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Kendall in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Kendall?
The 2020 Census sex table shows Kendall on both sides of the split. Of the 83,086 people counted with this name, 26,747 were male (32.2%) and 56,339 were female (67.8%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Kendall?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kendall is White at 68.9%. The next largest groups are Black (19.2%) and Two or More Races (5.2%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Kendall most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Kendall in the 2020 Census, accounting for 68.9% (57,248 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Kendall in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Kendall a female name?
Yes, 65.1% of people registered as Kendall in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Kendall still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Kendall in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Kendall can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Kendall?
You can see how many people share the name Kendall on our sister site HowManyOfMe.org — same data roots, lighter UI.