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Christian vs Kristian

American parents have registered 473,843 Christians since 1880, against 27,634 Kristians. Christian is still ahead, with 3,668 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Christian against Kristian, 1880 to 2025 0 5k 10k 15k 20k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Christian Kristian

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Christian has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1880 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 1977, when Christian had 2,453 and Kristian had 341.

Side by side

  Christian Kristian
Total US births 473,84327,634
Most in one year 16,544886
Babies in 2025 3,668192
Estimated living today 454,00027,000
Median age today 2427
Peak year 20001997
Best rank 22nd boys389th boys
Rank in 2025 96th1,145th
First recorded 18801942
Girls / boys 19,875 / 453,9686,820 / 20,814

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Kristians alive today are over 27; half the Christians are over 24. That is 3 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Christian Kristian
France 405,870245
Italy 65,4352,856
Norway 14,83016,873
England and Wales 9,8002,825
Switzerland 1,768352
Ireland 1,617245
Poland 574347
Scotland 671211
Belgium 77649
Northern Ireland 34098

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Christian and Kristian.