Kirkland
Masculine · “the land belonging to the church”
Kirkland is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 2,160 boys against 18 girls since 1880.
This is a straightforward English place name — church land, the ground belonging to a parish — and it would be an unremarkable surname-name were it not for the fact that one retailer has put the word on more objects than every family who ever carried it, combined and several times over.
How old is the name Kirkland?
Kirkland first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Kirkland alive today was born around 1990, making them about 35 years old. About 1,900 people named Kirkland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kirkland most popular?
Kirkland peaked in 1997, reaching #1045 nationally. See the whole 1997 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From kirkja to Kirkland
The story of Kirkland
The first element is the same word as church and arrived in England twice. Both descend from a Greek word meaning belonging to the Lord. One route was slow and early, through Germanic speakers on the continent into Old English, where it became the word the south uses. The other came with Norse settlers, who had borrowed the same Greek word by a different path, and it became the word the north and Scotland use. So the line on the map between places called kirk and places called church is not a difference of religion or of dialect exactly; it is a record of who settled where, drawn in the ninth century and still legible.
Meaning
the land belonging to the church
Two elements, the first Norse and the second English, joined in the north of England and southern Scotland where both languages were spoken. Several places carry it, which is why the surname is scattered rather than descending from one family.
How the name formed
- kirkja
- Kirkland
- Kirtland
Pronouncing Kirkland
KURK-lund
Two syllables with the stress at the front and the second reduced. Nothing in the spelling causes any hesitation.
Nicknames for Kirkland
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
- 1914
- Most boys named
- 1997122 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1045reached in 1997
- Change vs 2022
- −28.6%10 in 2024, from 14
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.
Kirklands among us
people named Kirkland are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Kirkland sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- Kirk is a ready short form and a complete name on its own.
- The meaning is transparent once the two elements are pointed out.
- It belongs to the surname-name tradition without being a common example.
- One very large retailer has effectively taken ownership of the word.
- The spelling is recorded for a few girls, but nearly every child with it is a boy.
- It is long, and most people will use the short form immediately.
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What they receive
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Kirkland
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Kirklands are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,900 people named Kirkland are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kirkland in 2025?
- Kirkland is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Kirkland with classmates?
- Kirkland will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Kenneth#294 · Kevin#221 · Kyle#508 · Keith#800 · Karl#1585 · Kaleb#295 · Kurt#2258 · Kelly#1867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kirkland? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kirkland and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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