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Krishna vs Krista

American parents have registered 73,863 Kristas since 1880, against 4,291 Krishnas. But in 2025 it was Krishna that was commoner, 85 babies to 41.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Krishna against Krista, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Krishna Krista

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Of the 84 years in which either name was published, Krista for 77 years and Krishna for 7 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Krishna Krista
Total US births 4,29173,863
Most in one year 1233,065
Babies in 2025 8541
Estimated living today 4,20070,000
Median age today 2341
Peak year 20071986
Best rank 1,741st boys93rd girls
Rank in 2025 2,108th3,645th
First recorded 19571937
Girls / boys 1,906 / 2,38573,715 / 148

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Kristas alive today are over 41; half the Krishnas are over 23. That is 18 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Both names abroad

Countries whose statistics office publishes both names, so the comparison can be made somewhere other than the United States.

Country Krishna Krista
England and Wales 687216
France 275120

Every spelling a country files separately is added together, over whatever years that country publishes — which is not the same range in any two of them, so read the columns against each other and not the rows.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Krishna and Krista.