Kip
Masculine · “hide”
Kip is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 8,568 boys against 154 girls since 1880.
Kip is a hide. In medieval trade a kip was a bundle of small animal skins, and the surname described the man who dealt in them.
How old is the name Kip?
Kip first appears in US birth records in 1935 — 90 years ago. The typical Kip alive today was born around 1969, making them about 56 years old. About 7,300 people named Kip are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kip most popular?
Kip peaked in 1965, reaching #378 nationally. Today it ranks #1621, 1,243 places below that high. See the whole 1965 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From kip to Kip
The story of Kip
Kip and Kipp were English and Dutch surnames, and the Kip family were early landowners in New Amsterdam — Kips Bay in Manhattan is named for them. The name entered American given-name use in the twentieth century, often as a nickname registered outright, and appears in the registers in current use.
Meaningscholars disagree
hide, bundle of skins
The likeliest reading takes the surname from the Middle Dutch and Middle English kip, a bundle of hides — an occupational byname for a leather dealer. A second route treats Kip as a clipping of Christopher or of Kipling. Neither is settled, and both are in use.
How the name formed
- kip
- Kipp
- Kip
Related forms: Kip · Kipp
Pronouncing Kip
KIP
One syllable. Kip and Kipp are homophones; only the spelling differs.
Nicknames for Kip
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
- 1935
- Most boys named
- 1964332 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #378reached in 1965
- Change vs 2023
- −23.0%104 in 2025, from 135
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.
Kip in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kip in Dutch — same name
- Kipp in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Ohio, Texas, Minnesota.
Kips among us
people named Kip are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 16,424 born in 2025 was named Kip
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kip
- #1621
- Kip on the 2025 chart
- #758
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kip went to 104 boys in 2025, but Kipp is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 170, which makes it the 758th most-given boys’ name of the year — 863 places above the chart.
- Kip104
- Kipp66
About 1 boy in 10,048 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 16,424 for Kip 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 Carmine test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kip's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Carmine climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Carmine's path sketches the road Kip is walking now.
Kip 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 Kip is headed
Kip looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 18% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium 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.
Kip beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kip in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The hide-dealer meaning is concrete and records a real medieval trade.
- A documented New Amsterdam family carries the surname, and a Manhattan bay.
- Three letters, one syllable, and never misheard.
- The origin is genuinely split between a trade word and a clipping.
- In British English 'to kip' means to sleep.
- It is very short and can be swallowed by a long surname.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Kip
Masculine · #1621 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kips are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,300 people named Kip are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kip?
- Kip is the most-used spelling in US records — 104 of the 170 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kipp.
- How popular is the name Kip in 2025?
- Kip ranks #1621 among US boy names in 2025, with 104 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kip?
- About 1 in every 16,424 US boys born in 2025 was named Kip — 104 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kip with classmates?
- Kip will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kip
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Kendrix#1621 · Teagan#1621 · Ahaan#1621 · Antony#1621 · Obadiah#1621 · Theoden#1621 · Tylen#1621 · Benton#1621
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kip? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kip and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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