Kate
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Pet form of Katherine, sometimes used independently
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/keɪt/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kate is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Australia it is the 64th most common given name.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 467(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 1.2K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 1.3K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 587 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 467 (inferred from the name graph)
≈220,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Australia, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Pet form of Katherine, sometimes used independently.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 19 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kate counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈220,000 est. | ≈1 in 6.2K | — | Kate | 57 |
| NG Nigeria | #411 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.9K | — | Kate | 86 |
| US United States | #506 | 86,820 | 1 in 3.8K | 87K | Kate | 587 |
| AU Australia | #64 | ≈54,000 est. | ≈1 in 467 | 93 | Kate | 297 |
| GB United Kingdom | #199 | ≈52,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | 9 | Kate | 347 |
| NZ New Zealand | #132 | ≈4,200 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 17 | Kate | 178 |
| IE Ireland | #160 | ≈3,600 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 204 | Kate | 154 |
| LV Latvia | — | 1,560 | 1 in 1.2K | 1.6K | Kate | 35 |
Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register); PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Kate is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, A diminutive of the female given name Katherine and related names, also used as a formal given name.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, Kate är en engelsk smekform till → Katarina.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In English, Aboriginal: lookout
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In pi, locative singular masculine/neuter of kata, which is past participle of karoti (“to do”)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In dgc, to set the _balaybay_ snare (type of snare with several rattan loops set around a tame rooster, used to catch a wild rooster in the jungle)
as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Käthe Kollwitzb. 1867DEnot in their usual nameGerman printmaker and sculptor (1867–1945)
- Kate Mulgrewb. 1955USAmerican actress
- Gwyneth Paltrowb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, entrepreneur, writer and singer (born 1972)
- Siab. 1975AUnot in their usual nameAustralian singer and songwriter (born 1975)
- Kate Winsletb. 1975GBEnglish actress (born 1975)
- Katie Holmesb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1978)
- Kate Hudsonb. 1979USAmerican actress and singer (born 1979)
- Jacinda Ardernb. 1980NZnot in their usual namePrime Minister of New Zealand (2017–2023)
- Kate Marab. 1983USAmerican actress (born 1983)
- Kate McKinnonb. 1984USAmerican actress and comedian (born 1984)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 100 sources across 51 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 87K | #610 |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup) | — | 1.6K | #313 |
| LV Latvia | PMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register) | — | 1.6K | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 576 | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 204 | #24 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 203 | #610 |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 2008 | 93 | #84 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 2012 | 51 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2022 | 17 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 9 | #191 |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2016 | 9 | — |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- Is Kate a male or female name?
- Kate is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Kate?
- In the etymology graph, Karen, Catherine and Kathy are forms of the same name in other languages; Katie, Kayla and Kaylee are recorded short or pet forms; it is recorded as a short form of Katherine and Kathryn.
- What does the name Kate mean, and where does it come from?
- Pet form of Katherine, sometimes used independently. Recorded by Irish first names.
- How common is the name Kate?
- In the United States, the national register counted 86,820 people named Kate in 2020, about 1 in 3.8 thousand residents.
- How common is Kate compared with other names?
- In Australia, Kate is the 64th most common given name of 205,854 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Kate have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 224 thousand people named Kate in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kate.
- How do you pronounce Kate?
- A machine transcription gives /keɪt/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Kate?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kateThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Kate” — the 64th most common given name in Australia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.