Kelvin is taken from the River Kelvin in Glasgow, whose name is usually explained from the Gaelic caol abhainn, "narrow water" or "narrow river". The physicist William Thomson chose it for his title as Lord Kelvin, and the kelvin temperature scale still carries it. In the United States Kelvin ranked number 389 in 2000, then slid gradually to number 1036 in 2025, dropping out of the top 1000 in 2024.