Given name & surname · also Old English
Kilby
“child”
Kilby is a surname from Old English (ultimately Old Norse).
Meaning & origin
What it means
Kilby goes back to Old English ċild, meaning “child.”
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Where it comes from
Kilby comes from Old English, and ultimately from Old Norse.
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
How it developed
From Old English ċild (“child”), from Old Norse býr (“settlement”).
Adapted from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The story
Published U.S. birth records include this spelling as early as 1987. This is the earliest published observation available here, rather than a date for the name’s origin.
From dated birth records
Kilby through the years
- Babies since 1880
- 6
- 6 boys · 0 girls
- Most popular year
- 1987
- 6 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 6 in 1987. Later missing counts do not mean the name went unused. Published U.S. population figures for this spelling include 152 as a first name in 2020; 4,148 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.
People named Kilby
Listed by how widely each person is written about, which says nothing about the name itself.
Similar names
If you love Kilby, these share its style, era, origin or sound, from outside its own family.
McCauley
“the son of righteousness”
>99% boys
Kody
“one who is helpful”
93% boys · 7% girls
Brisco
“birch”
>99% boys
Vang
“field”
97% boys · 3% girls
Jostein
“horse” · “stone”
>99% boys
Corey
“from the hollow; of the churning waters”
96% boys · 4% girls
Jarvis
“one who wields a spear”
>99% boys
Tore
Tore is a masculine given name from Old Norse, ultimately from Proto-Germanic. It is used in Swedish and Norwegian Nynorsk.
88% boys · 12% girls