Name Generator

How popular is the name Cole?

Births per year, rank history and how many Coles are alive today.

Cole (male) sits just outside the top 100 boys' names in England and Wales, ranked 179th in 2025 with 289 babies given the name. This spelling of the name peaked in 2010, when 499 babies were given the name, the 125th most popular that year. Its fortunes dipped to rank 204 in 2021 before climbing back to the 179th place it holds today. Numbers have been stable in recent years. At least 9,000 babies have been named Cole in England and Wales since 1996. Cole is one spelling of a name also recorded as Kole; the combined figures below cover every spelling. Cole is also a common short form of Nicholas, so many people called Cole are registered under the longer name.

Across all spellings of the name, the Cole you are most likely to meet is around 17 years old. Half of all Coles born in England and Wales are between 8 and 20, and there are at least 9,700 of them alive today. If you walk into a room of 100 males, there's roughly a 3.2% chance that at least one of them will be called Cole.

How many babies are named Cole each year?

Includes all spellings: Cole, Kole. Figures before 1996 are estimates.

Where does the Cole spelling rank?

Where does the Kole spelling rank?

Where this data comes from

Figures from 1996 onwards are the Office for National Statistics' annual baby-name registrations for England and Wales, which record every name given to three or more babies in a year. Figures before 1996 are estimates: the ONS published only top-100 rankings at ten-year intervals back to 1904, so counts for those years are modelled from the rankings, calibrated against Douglas Galbi's long-run research into English name frequencies, and shown with an uncertainty band. Estimates of living bearers combine these birth figures with national life tables and ONS mid-year population estimates.

One limit worth naming: these figures count names as registered at birth. Anyone who changes their name later in life - including trans people, and anyone who adopts a different name by deed poll or simply by use - is not reflected here. Birth registrations record where a name began, not the name a person lives with.