Caleb
Fewer than 80 people in Poland carry it, all of them men, so meeting one sticks in the memory. The name is Hebrew and means "dog", and it keeps fading: no newborns in recent years.
Caleb Pronunciation
Caleb is pronounced TSAH-lep (/ˈt͡salɛp/).
What Caleb means
Where Caleb comes from and what it has meant to the people who carry it.
Caleb comes from the Hebrew, where it sits close to the word kelev, meaning dog. In the Book of Numbers, Caleb is one of the twelve scouts sent into Canaan. Ten came back afraid. He and Joshua trusted, and so the old reading of the name softened from "dog" toward "faithful" and "wholehearted." The animal sense came first. The devotion was read into it afterward.
English speakers took the name up seriously after the Reformation, when Puritan families reached into the Hebrew Bible for their children. Caleb crossed to New England with them and stayed. It is an English name now by association, though its bones are Hebrew.
The meaning has an honest edge. A dog is loyal. Calling the biblical Caleb a dog was praise for how he stuck by his conviction when the crowd would not.
Caleb carries no diminutives of its own. On a Polish class register it stands whole, four letters, with no softened Calek to hide behind. The origin holds: pies, dog, and the loyalty later fastened to it.
How many people are named Caleb
1 in 270205 men in Poland is named Caleb. 79 people carry it in the 2025 register: rank #3996 among male names.
Caleb's popularity over time
Fewer than 2 boys were given the name in 2025. It has been stable for a decade.
Caleb as a middle name
Caleb is a first name for 79 men in Poland and a middle name for another 19, an 81/19 split. In the men's middle-name ranking it sits 2044th, between Aydin (19) and Chien (19).
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#2042 Aris19
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#2043 Aydin19
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#2044 Caleb19
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#2045 Chien19
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#2046 Chima19