Meaning and history
Kelly is the Anglicized form of the Irish given name Ceallach or of the related surname Ó Ceallaigh. The surname was borne by actor and dancer Gene Kelly and by actress and princess Grace Kelly. As a given name, Kelly was mainly masculine before 1940 but became increasingly popular for girls in the 1940s and 1950s, probably influenced by Grace Kelly's 1956 marriage to Prince Rainier III of Monaco and by a female character in the 1957 television series Bachelor Father. Its popularity was declining by the end of the 1970s.
20062006: 1,611 births, rank #212
2007: 1,569 births, rank #222
2008: 1,399 births, rank #248
2009: 1,251 births, rank #261
2010: 1,061 births, rank #306
20112011: 944 births, rank #336
2012: 892 births, rank #357
2013: 849 births, rank #368
2014: 740 births, rank #432
2015: 675 births, rank #480
20162016: 605 births, rank #515
2017: 504 births, rank #597
2018: 486 births, rank #618
2019: 448 births, rank #652
2020: 366 births, rank #745
20212021: 324 births, rank #850
2022: 347 births, rank #808
2023: 362 births, rank #779
2024: 312 births, rank #867
20252025: 319 births, rank #851
Kelly rose from #867 to #852 for girls between 2024 and 2025. Its highest annual birth count came in 1977, with 18,234 births.