Crystal
Feminine · “Ice”
Crystal is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 332,114 girls against 1,184 boys since 1880. See Crystal as a boy name
The best glass in the world is called crystal because it was made to imitate a stone. Ordinary seventeenth-century glass was green, cloudy and full of bubbles; an English glassmaker added lead oxide, got something clear and heavy that rang when struck, and the name of the mineral it resembled transferred to it and stayed.
How old is the name Crystal?
Crystal first appears in US birth records in 1884 — 141 years ago. The typical Crystal alive today was born around 1982, making them about 43 years old. About 316,000 people named Crystal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Crystal most popular?
Crystal peaked in 1982, reaching #9 nationally. Today it ranks #1144, 1,135 places below that high. See the whole 1982 chart.
Where it comes from
From krystallos to Crystal
The story of Crystal
The name also attached itself to a building, and by a joke. When a vast iron and glass structure was put up in Hyde Park for the exhibition of eighteen fifty-one, it had no name; a satirical magazine called it the Crystal Palace in print, apparently sarcastically, and the name was universal within weeks and stuck for the rest of the building's life. It was moved to south London afterwards, gave its name to the district and to a football club, and burned down in a single night in the nineteen-thirties, watched by half of London. The district is still called that. A word for ice, applied to a rock, applied to glass, applied by a magazine to a shed, is now the name of a place on the map.
Meaning
Ice
Greek krystallos meant ice and was applied to clear quartz on the theory that it was water frozen past thawing. The English word for the stone became the name, used directly in the way that Ruby, Pearl and Opal are. Nothing about it describes a person.
How the name formed
- krystallos
- cristal
- Crystal
Related forms: Cristal · Cristal
Pronouncing Crystal
KRIS-tul
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The final l carries its own syllable without a vowel doing much work, which is why the name can be spelled with or without one and sound the same.
Nicknames for Crystal
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
- 1884
- Most girls named
- 198219,099 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #9reached in 1982
- Change vs 2022
- −19.2%202 in 2025, from 250
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.
Crystal in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cristal in French — same name
- Cristal in Spanish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, New York.
Crystals among us
people named Crystal are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,957 born in 2025 was named Crystal
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Crystal
- #1144
- Crystal on the 2025 chart
- #621
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Crystal went to 202 girls in 2025, but Krystal, Cristal and Kristal and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 6 spellings went to 362, which makes it the 621st most-given girls’ name of the year — 523 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 4,440 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,957 for Crystal 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 Kathleen test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Crystal's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kathleen climbed just as high around 1949, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kathleen's path sketches the road Crystal is walking now.
Crystal 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
Where Crystal is headed
Crystal is easing off slowly — about 20% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
High confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Crystal beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Crystal in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is immediate and needs no explaining anywhere in the world.
- Several short forms in different registers, all of them easy.
- It is spelled almost identically in French and Spanish.
- The record carries it for boys in small numbers, so it is not quite an absolute signal.
- It is very closely dated to the nineteen-eighties in American ears.
- The word now also names a drug, which is an association no family chose and cannot avoid.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Crystal to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Crystal
Feminine · #1144 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Crystals are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 316,000 people named Crystal are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Crystal?
- Crystal is the most-used spelling in US records — 202 of the 362 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Krystal, Cristal, Kristal, Christal and Chrystal.
- How popular is the name Crystal in 2025?
- Crystal ranks #1144 among US girl names in 2025, with 202 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Crystal?
- About 1 in every 7,957 US girls born in 2025 was named Crystal — 202 in all.
- Will my child share the name Crystal with classmates?
- Crystal will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Crystal
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Libby#1144 · Mireya#1144 · Reece#1144 · Aubrielle#1144 · Natasha#1144 · Kamari#1139 · Taliyah#1139 · Allyson#1139
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Crystal? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Crystal and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Weighing a whole shortlist? Add the rest in the builder, or settle it with a bracket.
Cast your vote
Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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