Entry № 1806 · Irish origin

Cathleen Cathleen — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ kath-LEEN /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Irish
Meaning
"Pure (W.B. Yeats's Cathleen ni Houlihan)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval (Irish)

A name that means "pure (w.b. yeats's cathleen ni houlihan)".

Cathleen is the Anglicized form of the Irish Caitlín — from the Greek katharos (pure). Cathleen Crowell Webb — American figure.

Pure (W.B. Yeats's Cathleen ni Houlihan) — a Irish name.

The name in its native script.

Caitlín
Transliteration
Caitlín
Pronunciation
/ kæθˈliːn /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Cathleen stands.

Cathleen does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Cathleens before her.

Real people
Cathleen Cordell
American actress (100+ films).
1915 – 1997
Cathleen Nesbitt
English actress.
1888 – 1982
In fiction
Cathleen ni Houlihan
Yeats's iconic 1902 play.
1902

Names connected to Cathleen.

The number behind Cathleen.

5

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Cathleen reduce to 5, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.