Kris
given name · Latin script
Meaning: , 3 Short form of Kristina, }Kristene, Kristen, or any other name beginning with this syllable
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/cɹɪs/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kris is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 67th most common given name.
- AUAustralia≈1 in 281as Chris(inferred from the name graph)
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 351as Chris
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 352as Chris
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Kris itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #147 (measured from records)
- 8 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 666 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 281 (inferred from the name graph)
366,260 named Chris, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Australia, est., as Chris
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Chris in US United States, GB United Kingdom, AU Australia and 4 more.
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)
, 3 Short form of Kristina, }Kristene, Kristen, or any other name beginning with this syllable.
Sources 1
- A concise dictionary of first names
Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kris 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #67 | 366,260as Chris | 1 in 908 | 346K | Chris | 666 |
| GB United Kingdom | #65 | ≈190,000 est. | ≈1 in 352 | 6 | Chris | 437 |
| NG Nigeria | #450 | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.8K | listed | Chris | 122 |
| CA Canada | #40 | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 367 | 8 | Chris | 379 |
| AU Australia | #36 | ≈91,000 est. | ≈1 in 281 | 4 | Chris | 350 |
| GR Greece | #76 | ≈23,000 est. | ≈1 in 456 | — | Chris | 148 |
| NZ New Zealand | #40 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 351 | 13 | Chris | 217 |
366,260 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Kris 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 traditional Indonesian, Malaysian, or Filipino sword or dagger having a tapering, usually serpentine blade.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Dutch, kris (Indonesian or Malay with a wavy blade)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Swedish, crisis (very bad situation; emergency)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In kaw, kris (a dagger)
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In rom, trial
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Christopher Lloydb. 1938USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (born 1938)
- Chris Cooperb. 1951USAmerican actor (1951-)
- Chris Columbusb. 1958USAmerican filmmaker (born 1958)
- Chris Buckb. 1960USAmerican animator and film director
- Chris Cornellb. 1964USAmerican musician (1964–2017)
- Chris Williamsb. 1968CAAmerican animator, film director and screenwriter
- Chris Terriob. 1976USAmerican film director
- Chris Hughesb. 1983USAmerican entrepreneur
- Kris Wub. 1990CNChinese-born Canadian rapper and convicted sex criminal (1990–)
- Chris Woodb. 1991NZNew Zealand association football player
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 86 sources across 48 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 20K | #1,167 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 14K | #1,167 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 37 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 1991 | 13 | — |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 8 | — |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 7 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2016 | 4 | #592 |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2023 | 1 | #2,230 |
Reference works 5
- 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 Kris a male or female name?
- Kris is a male 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 does the name Kris mean, and where does it come from?
- , 3 Short form of Kristina, }Kristene, Kristen, or any other name beginning with this syllable. Recorded by A concise dictionary of first names.
- How do you pronounce Kris?
- A machine transcription gives /cɹɪs/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Kris?
- In the etymology graph, Chris, Tina and Christophe are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Kris?
- In the United States, the national register counted 366,260 people named Chris in 2020, about 1 in 908 residents.
- How common is Kris compared with other names?
- In the United States, Kris is the 67th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Kris have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 366 thousand people named Chris, more than in any other country we hold.
What do you want to know about Kris?
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/krisThe 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, “Kris” — the 67th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.