Khaleel
A masculine name of Arabic origin meaning "friend" or "close companion".
Name Census estimates that about 1,170 living Americans carry the first name Khaleel. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Khaleel today is around 18 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Khaleel births was 1999 (54 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Khaleel. 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 Khaleel with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
1.2K
~ 1 in 292,952 Americans
Peak year
1999
54 babies that year
Average age
18
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,605
Tracked since 1975
Census
Khaleel in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,025 people with the first name Khaleel, which placed it at #12,212 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
#12,212
National first-name rank
People counted
1.0K
1,025 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.3
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
60.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Khaleel
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Khaleel is Black at 60.0%. The next largest groups are White (17.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (9.6%). 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 Khaleel 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 Khaleel at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American60.0% · 615
- White17.8% · 182
- Asian and Pacific Islander9.6% · 98
- Two or more races7.5% · 77
- Hispanic or Latino4.6% · 47
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 6
Popularity
Khaleel: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Khaleel from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 302 total registrations. The name continues to be given at rates close to its all-time high, suggesting it has not yet fallen out of fashion.
Babies born per year
Decades
Khaleel 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 Khaleel during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Khaleels live
The SSA's state-level files cover 8 states and territories. New York, Florida, Texas recorded the most babies named Khaleel, while Maryland, Ohio, Illinois recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 28 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Khaleel
The name Khaleel has its origins in the Arabic language and culture. It is derived from the Arabic word "khalil" which means "friend" or "beloved". The name was commonly used in the Middle East and North Africa regions during the medieval Islamic era.
One of the earliest known references to the name Khaleel can be found in the Quran, the holy book of Islam. It is mentioned as one of the names attributed to the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) in the verse "And Allah took Ibrahim as a Khalil" (Quran 4:125), meaning a close friend or beloved of Allah.
The first recorded person with the name Khaleel was Khaleel ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (718-786 CE), an Arab philologist and lexicographer from Basra, Iraq. He is considered one of the pioneers of Arabic linguistics and the author of the first Arabic dictionary, Kitab al-Ayn.
Another notable historical figure with the name Khaleel was Khaleel ibn Shahin al-Zahiri (776-845 CE), an Arab jurist and scholar from Baghdad. He was a prominent figure in the Zahiri school of Islamic jurisprudence and wrote several influential works on Islamic law.
In the 11th century, Khaleel ibn Aybak al-Safadi (1029-1090 CE) was a renowned Arab poet and literary critic from Safad, Palestine. His poetry was widely celebrated during his lifetime, and he is considered one of the greatest poets of the Abbasid era.
During the Mamluk period in Egypt, Khaleel ibn Aybak al-Tawrizi (1235-1299 CE) was a prominent Arab astronomer and mathematician from Damascus. He made significant contributions to the fields of astronomy and trigonometry and wrote several works on these subjects.
In the 14th century, Khaleel ibn Aybak al-Mansuri (1313-1384 CE) was a celebrated Arab physician and philosopher from Cairo, Egypt. He was known for his expertise in medicine and his philosophical writings, which were influenced by the works of Aristotle and Avicenna.
These are just a few examples of notable historical figures who bore the name Khaleel. The name has a rich cultural and linguistic heritage, and its meaning as "friend" or "beloved" has been a source of inspiration for many throughout history.
People
Khaleel + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Khaleel 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
Khaleel: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Khaleel?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,170 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Khaleel 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 292,952 US residents.
Is Khaleel a common name?
We classify Khaleel as "Rare". It ranks above 91.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,187 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Khaleel most popular?
The single biggest year for Khaleel was 1999, when 54 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Khaleel is about 18 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Khaleel in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,025 people with the name Khaleel, or 0.34 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #12,212 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 Khaleel 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 Khaleel?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Khaleel appears almost entirely male. Of the 1,024 people counted with this name, 99.0% were male and only a very small share were female. 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 Khaleel?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Khaleel is Black at 60.0%. The next largest groups are White (17.8%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (9.6%). 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 Khaleel most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Khaleel in the 2020 Census, accounting for 60.0% (615 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 Khaleel in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Khaleel a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Khaleel in the SSA data are male. 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 Khaleel still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Khaleel 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 Khaleel 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 are called Khaleel?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.