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Kristen vs Kristopher

American parents have registered 220,952 Kristens since 1880, against 63,548 Kristophers. But in 2025 it was Kristopher that was commoner, 172 babies to 106.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kristen against Kristopher, 1880 to 2025 0 2.5k 5k 7.5k 10k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kristen Kristopher

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 88 years in which either name was published, Kristen for 71 years and Kristopher for 17 years. The lead changed hands 3 times.

Side by side

  Kristen Kristopher
Total US births 220,95263,548
Most in one year 9,5962,536
Babies in 2025 106172
Estimated living today 212,00060,000
Median age today 4037
Peak year 19821978
Best rank 33rd girls104th boys
Rank in 2025 1,990th1,188th
First recorded 19381947
Girls / boys 218,767 / 2,185297 / 63,251

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 Kristens alive today are over 40; half the Kristophers are over 37. That is 3 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 Kristen Kristopher
France 915225
England and Wales 605478
Scotland 164855
Ireland 5935
Northern Ireland 2517

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: Kristen and Kristopher.