Cian
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Irish Gaelic name, from a root meaning 'ancient' or 'enduring'
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/ˈʃin/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Cian is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Ireland than in any other country.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.4K(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 45K
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 75K
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.
- Ireland (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 237 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.4K (inferred from the name graph)
≈3,700 people, est.
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Irish Gaelic name, from a root meaning 'ancient' or 'enduring'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Cian 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| IE Ireland | #172 | ≈3,700 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | 200 | Cian | 132 |
| US United States | — | 2,966 | 1 in 112K | 2.9K | Cian | 237 |
| CN China | — | ≈1,700 est. | ≈1 in 830K | — | Cian | 8 |
| TW Taiwan | — | ≈920 est. | ≈1 in 26K | — | Cian | 45 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈880 est. | ≈1 in 75K | 33 | Cian | 181 |
| AU Australia | — | ≈570 est. | ≈1 in 45K | 1 | Cian | 102 |
| SE Sweden | — | 121 | 1 in 84K | 121 | — | 11 |
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: CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population). 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)
Cian 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 Irish, ‘Ancient’; early Irish name still in use.
as a nameIrish first names
Irish: traditional Gaelic name, pronounced ‘kee-an’, derived from the Irish vocabulary word meaning ‘ancient’. It was borne by a son-in-law of Brian Boru, who played a leading role in the battle of Clontarf (1014). Anglicized forms: Kean(e). the fairy-tale heroine Cinderella, which is in fact unrelated (being from French Cendrillon, a derivative of cendre ‘cinders’).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In French, Origine celtique, « ancien ».
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Irish: traditional Gaelic name, from the Irish vocabulary word meaning ‘ancient’. It was borne by a son-in-law of Brian Boru who played a leading role in the Battle of Clontarf (1014). Anglicized forms: Kean(e) .
as a word
In Irish, a male given name from Old Irish used in Ireland
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)
- Cian Ciaránb. 1976GBWelsh musician
- Cian O'Connorb. 1979IEIrish equestrian
- Cian Healyb. 1987IEIrish rugby union footballer
- Cian Hughtonb. 1989IEIrish footballer
- Cian Bolgerb. 1992IEfootballer
- Cian Ducrotb. 1997IEIrish singer
- Cian Harriesb. 1997GBassociation football player
- Cian Prendergastb. 2000IEIrish rugby union player
- Cian Uijtdebroeksb. 2003BEBelgian cyclist
- Cian Shieldsb. 2005GBBritish racing driver
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 51 sources across 26 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.9K | #5,695 |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2019 | 200 | #32 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 148 | — |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 121 | #7,509 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 100 | #5,695 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 67 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 33 | #72 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 24 | #181 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2007 | 5 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2017 | 1 | — |
| AU Australia | SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present) | 2017 | 1 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 2015 | 1 | — |
Reference works 2
- Wikipedia given-name 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
- How do you pronounce Cian?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈʃin/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Cian?
- In the etymology graph, Kian is a form of the same name in other languages; Cianán is a recorded short or pet form.
- What does the name Cian mean, and where does it come from?
- Irish Gaelic name, from a root meaning 'ancient' or 'enduring'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Cian a male or female name?
- Cian 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.
- In which country does Cian have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 3.7 thousand people named Cian in Ireland, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled cian.
- How common is the name Cian?
- In the United States, the national register counted 2,966 people named Cian in 2020, about 1 in 112 thousand residents.
- How common is Cian compared with other names?
- In Ireland, Cian is the 172nd most common given name of 14,976 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Cian?
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/cianThe 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, “Cian” — the 172nd most common given name in Ireland. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.