I do love Stormlight! Kal's name idea actually came from a different book series, the Hierarchy series. There's a character names Callidus, which is pronounced like "Call" instead of "Cal", So I just changed it so Cal could be his short name and then changed the spelling around to Kaladus "Kal". I realized later that it's also close to Kaladin.

Initially Connor spells his name as Caladus until Kal learns to write some English and thinks K is more accurate.