Kingsley
A masculine name of Anglo-Saxon origin meaning "king's meadow" or "king's clearing".
Name Census estimates that about 8,102 living Americans carry the first name Kingsley. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 76.1% of registrations being male. The average person named Kingsley today is around 14 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Kingsley births was 2020 (667 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Kingsley. 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 Kingsley with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Kingsley is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 14 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
8.1K
~ 1 in 42,305 Americans
Peak year
2020
667 babies that year
Average age
14
years old
2024 SSA rank
#984
Tracked since 1907
Census
Kingsley in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 6,669 people with the first name Kingsley, which placed it at #3,224 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
#3,224
National first-name rank
People counted
6.7K
6,669 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.2
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
46.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Kingsley
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kingsley is Black at 46.5%. The next largest groups are White (27.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.2%). 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 Kingsley 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 Kingsley at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American46.5% · 3,101
- White27.2% · 1,813
- Asian and Pacific Islander12.2% · 814
- Two or more races7.1% · 473
- Hispanic or Latino6.3% · 421
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 47
Gender
Gender distribution for Kingsley
Kingsley is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 8,548 total registrations, 6,506 (76.1%) were male and 2,042 (23.9%) were female.
Kingsley as a male name
- Ranked #984 in 2024
- 228 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2016 (473 births)
Kingsley as a female name
- Ranked #1,673 in 2024
- 122 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2020 (238 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kingsley leans strongly male. 5,579 people counted with this name were male (83.6%), compared with 1,094 female bearers (16.4%).
Popularity
Kingsley: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Kingsley from the 1900s through to the 2020s, spanning 13 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 4,047 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Kingsley remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Kingsley 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 Kingsley during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Kingsleys live
The SSA's state-level files cover 37 states and territories. California, Texas, New York recorded the most babies named Kingsley, while Idaho, Kansas, Connecticut recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 151 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Kingsley
The name Kingsley is an English given name derived from the Old English words "cyning" meaning king, and "leah" meaning meadow or clearing in a forest. It essentially means "the king's meadow" or "the royal clearing." The name originated in England during the Anglo-Saxon period, sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries.
The earliest recorded use of the name Kingsley can be traced back to the 12th century. It was initially used as a surname, referring to someone who lived near a meadow or clearing belonging to the king. Over time, it transitioned into a given name as well.
One of the earliest notable individuals with the name Kingsley was Sir Kingsley Fitzjames, an English knight who lived during the 13th century. He was a prominent figure in the court of King Henry III and participated in several military campaigns.
In the 16th century, Kingsley was the name of a character in the play "Sir Thomas More" by William Shakespeare and other playwrights. This play, written around 1590, helped to popularize the name further.
During the Victorian era, the name Kingsley gained even more prominence due to the renowned English writer and clergyman, Charles Kingsley (1819-1875). He was a prominent figure in the literature and social reform movements of his time and authored several popular novels, including "The Water-Babies" and "Westward Ho!"
Another notable bearer of the name was Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), a highly acclaimed English novelist, poet, and critic. He is best known for his novels such as "Lucky Jim" and "The Old Devils," which satirized the British upper-class society of the time.
In the field of science, Kingsley Charles Dunham (1910-2001) was a British astronomer and director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. He made significant contributions to the study of positional astronomy and the development of new observational techniques.
Other historical figures with the name Kingsley include Kingsley Shacklebolt, a fictional character from the Harry Potter book series by J.K. Rowling, and Kingsley Fairbridge, an English philanthropist and founder of the Fairbridge Child Migration Scheme in the early 20th century.
People
Kingsley + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Kingsley 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
Kingsley: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Kingsley?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 8,102 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Kingsley 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 42,305 US residents.
Is Kingsley a common name?
We classify Kingsley as "Rare". It ranks above 97.4% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 8,548 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Kingsley most popular?
The single biggest year for Kingsley was 2020, when 667 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Kingsley is about 14 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Kingsley in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 6,669 people with the name Kingsley, or 2.21 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,224 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 Kingsley 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 Kingsley?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kingsley leans strongly male. 5,579 people counted with this name were male (83.6%), compared with 1,094 female bearers (16.4%). 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 Kingsley?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kingsley is Black at 46.5%. The next largest groups are White (27.2%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (12.2%). 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 Kingsley most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Kingsley in the 2020 Census, accounting for 46.5% (3,101 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 Kingsley in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Kingsley a male name?
Yes, 76.1% of people registered as Kingsley 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 Kingsley still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Kingsley 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 Kingsley 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 have Kingsley as a first name?
HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, answers that with the living-bearer count in one glance.