What is the common name for a baby whale?

The common name for a baby whale is a calf. This term is used for the young of whales, just as it is used for the young of several other large mammals, including elephants and giraffes.

Whale calves are born after long pregnancies and are usually delivered tail-first, an adaptation that helps reduce the risk of drowning during birth. Depending on the species, a newborn calf may be roughly one-quarter to one-third the length of its mother. Blue whale calves, for example, can be about 7 metres long at birth and gain weight rapidly from extremely rich milk.

A calf drinks milk that is much thicker and fattier than ordinary mammalian milk. Rather than suckling in the usual way, the mother squirts milk into the calf’s mouth through mammary glands concealed within slits near the tail. The terms cub, foal, and pup belong to other animals: bears and big cats have cubs, horses have foals, and seals commonly have pups. “Calf” is the standard broad term, although individual whale species may have additional local or scientific descriptions for their young.