Tristan
About 130,794 American babies have been named Tristan since 1946, most of them around 2008. In 2025 it ranked 309th. About 128,000 Tristans are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 18.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Tristan boys named Tristan
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 130,794
- Estimated living today
- 128,000
- Median age today
- 18
- Peak year
- 2008
- Best rank
- 81st
- Rank in 2025
- 309th
- First recorded
- 1946
- Girls / boys
- 6,551 / 124,243
How old the living Tristans are
born that year still alive today
Of the 130,794 babies given the name since 1946, about 128,000 are alive — 98 in every hundred. Roughly 60,000 of them are children and 80 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2007 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Celtic languages
the name of a knight, lover of Iseult in medieval romance Tristan and Iseult, from Drystan derived from drest meaning "riot" or "tumult".
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Tristans
- Tristan Tzara (1896–1963)Romanian-French poet
- Tristan Bernard (1866–1947)French playwright
- Tristan Corbière (1845–1875)French poet
- Tristan Thompson (born 1991)Canadian basketball player
- Tristan Wilds (born 1989)American actor
- Tristan Gale (born 1980)American skeleton racer
- Tristan Taormino (born 1971)American author, columnist and adult film director
- Tristán Ulloa (born 1970)Spanish actor
People named Tristan with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Tristan is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Tristan is most concentrated in Alaska (3.2×), Nevada (2.5×), Idaho (1.8×), Washington (1.7×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2008
The most popular boys’ names the year Tristan peaked:
Tristan elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| France boys | Tristan | 42,705 | 47th |
| England and Wales boys | Tristan | 9,337 | 121st |
| Belgium boys | Tristan | 4,013 | 35th |
| Switzerland boys | Tristan | 1,254 | 108th |
| Denmark boys | Tristan | 1,167 | 45th |
| Ireland boys | Tristan | 1,126 | 103rd |
| Scotland boys | Tristan | 504 | 181st |
| Poland boys | Tristan | 443 birth registrations | 163rd |
| Norway boys | Tristan | 425 | 163rd |
| Italy boys | Tristan | 401 | — |
| Northern Ireland boys | Tristan | 303 | 131st |
| New Zealand boys | Tristan | 111 | 92nd |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Tristan: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German boys | Switzerland | Tristan | 597 | 0.048% | 145th |
| French boys | Switzerland | Tristan | 621 | 0.143% | 52nd |
| Italian boys | Switzerland | Tristan | 36 | 0.055% | 66th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Tristan is most concentrated in Jura, where 0.30% of children were given it – 44 of them.
Tristan: rank by region
In 2025, Tristan was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Tristan | 268 | 22 |
| Wallonia | Tristan | 317 | 8 |
In 2013, Tristan was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Tristan | 10 | 1 |
In 2022, Tristan was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wielkopolskie | Tristan | 258 | 2 |
In 2025, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Tristan appears in the lists for Province of Antwerp (181st) and Province of East Flanders (226th).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Tristan by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 101 | 211th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Tristan among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands boys | Tristan | 4,302 | 5,398 |
| Finland boys | Tristan | 223 | 330 |
| the Netherlands girls | Tristan | — | 6 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Tristan lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 2,490 men called Tristan were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Men: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Asturias | Tristan | 94 | 0.194 | 405 |
| Madrid | Tristan | 642 | 0.188 | 374 |
| Soria | Tristan | 8 | 0.175 | 438 |
| Cantabria | Tristan | 48 | 0.167 | 449 |
| Huesca | Tristan | 19 | 0.162 | 471 |
| Segovia | Tristan | 12 | 0.151 | 492 |
Listed in 48 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 4 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Tristan against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.