Ceilidh

given name · Latin script

Meaning: An informal social gathering, especially one where traditional Irish or Scottish folk music is played, with dancing and storytelling

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/keɪli/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Ceilidh is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country.

rarermore common
  • CACanada≈1 in 377K(inferred from the name graph)
  • AUAustralia≈1 in 750K
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 921K

carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.

United States (measured from records)

180 people, 2020

Sources
105 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 377K (inferred from the name graph)

Canada, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Meaning & origin(measured from records)

An informal social gathering, especially one where traditional Irish or Scottish folk music is played, with dancing and storytelling.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Ceilidh counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.

Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.

Where Ceilidh is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States1801 in 1.8M180Ceilidh105
CA Canada≈100 est.≈1 in 377K6Ceilidh60
GB United Kingdom≈71 est.≈1 in 921K3Ceilidh55
AU Australia≈34 est.≈1 in 750K1Ceilidh32
ZA South Africa≈16 est.≈1 in 3.5M—Ceilidh5
NZ New Zealand≈4 est.≈1 in 1.2M—Ceilidh8

180 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.

Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); the ca-statcan-baby-names register; SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).

Other names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Ceilidh is also recorded as another name, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Céilidh

26 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Ceilidh is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, Scotia; Irish & Scottish evening of

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In English, Trail, Cape Breton Island, Nova

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In English, musical entertainment

    as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names

  • In Irish, inflection of ceil:

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

How to address them(machine-generated)

InformalHi Ceilidh,

A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.

Evidence(measured from records)

Attested in 8 sources across 5 countries.

Official registers attesting Ceilidh
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020180#40,999
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199321—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)200019—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199918—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199418—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199817—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)200315—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)200115—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199715—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199215—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199115—
CA CanadaStatistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01)199614—

Reference works 1

  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.

Frequently asked questions

What does the name Ceilidh mean, and where does it come from?
An informal social gathering, especially one where traditional Irish or Scottish folk music is played, with dancing and storytelling. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
How do you pronounce Ceilidh?
A machine transcription gives /keɪli/ (IPA) for English.
Is Ceilidh a male or female name?
Ceilidh is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
In which country does Ceilidh have the most bearers?
In the United States, the national register counted about 180 people named Ceilidh, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled ceilidh.
How common is the name Ceilidh?
In the United States, the national register counted 180 people named Ceilidh in 2020, about 1 in 1.8 million residents.

What do you want to know about Ceilidh?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/ceilidh

The payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.

About this data

measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated

These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Ceilidh”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Ceilidh parses inside a full name →