Entry № 5291 · Irish origin

Kathleen Kathleen — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ kath-LEEN /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Irish
Meaning
"Pure (Kathleen Turner; Kathleen Kennedy; Kathleen Battle)"
Syllables
2
First recorded
Medieval (Irish)

A name that means "pure (kathleen turner; kathleen kennedy; kathleen battle)".

Kathleen is the anglicized Irish Caitlín — the Irish form of Catherine, from the Greek katharos (pure).

Subject of countless industry profiles.

Pure (Kathleen Turner; Kathleen Kennedy; Kathleen Battle) — a Irish name.

The name in its native script.

Caitlín
Transliteration
Caitlín
Pronunciation
/ kæθˈliːn /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Kathleen stands.

Kathleen 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.

Kathleens before her.

Real people
Kathleen Turner
American actress.
born 1954
Kathleen Kennedy
Lucasfilm president.
born 1953
Kathleen Battle
American Grammy soprano.
born 1948
In fiction
Jessica Rabbit
Kathleen Turner voiced Jessica Rabbit.
1988

Names connected to Kathleen.

The number behind Kathleen.

4

The Builder

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Kathleen reduce to 4, The Builder. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.