Christiaan
Masculine · “Greek christos”
Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant in Cape Town on 3 December 1967. The patient lived eighteen days. The name peaks in the American data the following year, which is about as direct as a naming response gets.
How old is the name Christiaan?
Christiaan first appears in US birth records in 1964 — 61 years ago. The typical Christiaan alive today was born around 1988, making them about 37 years old. About 800 people named Christiaan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Christiaan most popular?
Christiaan peaked in 1968, reaching #1147 nationally. Today it ranks #9714, 8,567 places below that high. See the whole 1968 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From christos to Christiaan
The story of Christiaan
Barnard's team took the heart of a young woman fatally injured in a road accident and put it into Louis Washkansky, a fifty-three-year-old grocer with terminal heart disease. He woke, spoke and was photographed; he died of pneumonia eighteen days later, his immune system suppressed to prevent rejection. The operation was reported worldwide within hours and made Barnard internationally famous almost overnight, a surgeon in a country then largely isolated diplomatically. The techniques were not his alone, and Norman Shumway's group at Stanford had done most of the underlying work in dogs, a fact Barnard acknowledged. The second transplant, a month later, lived nineteen months. The American given name Christiaan, in this Dutch spelling, peaks in 1968, and the name Christian more broadly rose steeply through the same period.
Meaning
Greek christos, anointed
Christiaan is the Dutch and Afrikaans form of Christian, from Latin Christianus, a follower of Christ, from Greek christos, anointed. The doubled a is standard Dutch orthography for a long vowel. The American peak is 1968.
How the name formed
- christos
- Christianus
- Christiaan
Related forms: Christiaan · Christian · Christian
Pronouncing Christiaan
KRIS-tee-ahn
Three syllables, stress on the first in Dutch, where the doubled a marks a long vowel. English speakers usually say KRIS-chun, as for Christian.
Nicknames for Christiaan
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1964
- Most boys named
- 196843 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1147reached in 1968
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%7 in 2025, from 7
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Christiaan in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Christiaan in Dutch — same name
- Christian in English — same name
- Christian in Danish — same name
Christiaans among us
people named Christiaan are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 244,011 born in 2025 was named Christiaan
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Christiaan
- #9714
- Christiaan on the 2025 chart
- #72
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Christiaan went to 7 boys in 2025, but Christian, Cristian and Kristian and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 4,802, which makes it the 72nd most-given boys’ name of the year — 9,642 places above the chart.
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 boy in 356 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 244,011 for Christiaan itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Delroy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Christiaan's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Delroy climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Delroy's path sketches the road Christiaan is walking now.
Christiaan sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Christiaan beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Christiaan in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Chris and Kees are both established short forms.
- It is the standard Dutch and Afrikaans spelling.
- The name is recognized in every European language.
- The doubled a is a Dutch convention English readers misread.
- Christian is far commoner in American use.
- The 1968 peak ties it to one operation.
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Christiaan
Masculine · #9714 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Christiaans are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 800 people named Christiaan are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Christiaan?
- Christiaan is one of 5 recorded spellings. Christian is the more common one — 3,641 births in 2025 against 7 for Christiaan.
- How popular is the name Christiaan in 2025?
- Christiaan ranks #9714 among US boy names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Christiaan?
- About 1 in every 244,011 US boys born in 2025 was named Christiaan — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Christiaan with classmates?
- Christiaan will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Christiaan
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vern#9714 · Abrahm#9714 · Sid#9714 · Hartwell#9714 · Kwan#9714 · Adrean#9714 · Chancey#9714 · Bob#9714
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Christiaan? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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