Given name & surname · also German
Kahl
“the cold river”
Kahl is a surname from German, ultimately from Old High German.
Meaning & origin
What it means
Kahl goes back to Old High German kaldaha, meaning “the cold river.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Kahl comes from German, and ultimately from Old High German.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Old High German kaldaha (“the cold river”).
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1999. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Kahl through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 22
- 22 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 2007
- 7 babies
- 2025
- 0
- Outside the ranked list
- 2021–25 vs 2016–20
- —
- Too few births to compare
By the numbers
The most recent published U.S. birth count for boys is 5 in 2016. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Its largest published annual count for boys was 7 in 2007. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 128 as a first name in 2020; 5,015 as a surname in 2020.
From Social Security birth records and U.S. Census name counts for this exact spelling. Other spellings are counted separately.
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