Kristin
Feminine · “a Christian”
Kristin is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 179,313 girls against 1,638 boys since 1880. See Kristin as a boy name
Kristin is the Scandinavian form, and its arrival in English has an unusually precise cause. A Norwegian novelist published a three-volume account of a fourteenth-century woman's whole life, it was translated into English in the twenties, it won its author a Nobel, and American parents met the name on the cover of a book that a great many of them actually read.
How old is the name Kristin?
Kristin first appears in US birth records in 1932 — 93 years ago. The typical Kristin alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 171,000 people named Kristin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kristin most popular?
Kristin peaked in 1981, reaching #31 nationally. Today it ranks #4661, 4,630 places below that high. See the whole 1981 chart.
Kristin appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From The Latin word for a Christian, used as a name to Kristin
The story of Kristin
Sigrid Undset spent the twenties writing the life of a woman born on a Norwegian farm in the fourteenth century, from her childhood to her death in a plague, in three volumes and something over a thousand pages. It is a novel about a difficult marriage, a hard religion and a long life, and it was read enormously in English translation. The Nobel committee cited it directly. Names that arrive through novels behave in a particular way: they climb slowly, because the audience has to get through the book, and they last, because a book stays in print while a song leaves the radio. That is roughly what this spelling did in America. The Scandinavian form was not otherwise in English use, and it entered the language attached to a specific woman on a specific farm who never existed.
Meaning
a Christian
The name descends from the Latin word for a follower of Christ, and the meaning is the same in every language that uses it. What the Scandinavian form changes is only the spelling: no e at the end, a k at the front, and one fewer letter than the English Christine needs to produce the same sound. None of that touches the sense, which has been stable for the whole of the name's history.
How the name formed
- The Latin word for a Christian, used as a name
- Kristin as the Scandinavian form
- A Norwegian novel translated into English
- Kristin in general American use
Related forms: Kristin · Kristin · Christine · Kristin
Pronouncing Kristin
KRIS-tin
Two syllables, stress on the first, ending in a short in rather than an een. Norwegian puts a little more weight on the second syllable than American English does, and Christine, with an e, is a different name in speech even though it is the same one in origin.
Nicknames for Kristin
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
- 1932
- Most girls named
- 19819,737 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #31reached in 1981
- Change vs 2023
- −3.3%29 in 2025, from 30
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.
Kristin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kristin in Norwegian — same name
- Kristin in Swedish — same name
- Christine in English — related form
- Kristin in German — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Georgia.
Kristins among us
people named Kristin are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 55,423 born in 2025 was named Kristin
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Kristin
- #4661
- Kristin on the 2025 chart
- #909
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Kristin went to 29 girls in 2025, but Kristyn and Christyn are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 51, which makes it the 909th most-given girls’ name of the year — 3,752 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 31,515 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 55,423 for Kristin 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 Peggy test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Kristin's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Peggy climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Peggy's path sketches the road Kristin is walking now.
Kristin 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 Kristin is headed
Kristin is easing off slowly — about 21% 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.
Kristin beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Kristin in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, familiar and universally sayable, with no ambiguity about the sound at all.
- It is a genuine Scandinavian form rather than a respelling, which matters in families with those roots.
- Kris and Stina give it two very different registers to move between.
- Kristen, Kristin and Kirsten are three different names that everybody confuses, and yours is in the middle of them.
- It is closely tied to one generation of American women and has fallen a long way since.
- The spelling is on the register for boys as well, in small numbers, and reads female to nearly everyone.
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What they receive
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Kristin
Feminine · #4661 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Kristins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 171,000 people named Kristin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Kristin?
- Kristin is the most-used spelling in US records — 29 of the 51 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kristyn and Christyn.
- How popular is the name Kristin in 2025?
- Kristin ranks #4661 among US girl names in 2025, with 29 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Kristin?
- About 1 in every 55,423 US girls born in 2025 was named Kristin — 29 in all.
- Will my child share the name Kristin with classmates?
- Kristin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Kristin
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ellenor#4661 · Roselie#4661 · Marni#4661 · Menucha#4661 · Infinity#4661 · Lilya#4661 · Railyn#4661 · Zada#4661
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kristin? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Kristin and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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