Craig
given name · Latin script
Meaning: person living by a steep or precipitous rock, from Gaelic creag
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kɹeɪɡ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Craig is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country. In New Zealand it is the 58th most common given name.
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 429(inferred from the name graph)
- AUAustralia≈1 in 438
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 477
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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #337 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 634 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 429 (inferred from the name graph)
244,493 people, 2020
of 15M given names
Highest-authority source
New Zealand, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
person living by a steep or precipitous rock, from Gaelic creag
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Craig 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 | #158 | 244,493 | 1 in 1.4K | 244K | Craig | 634 |
| GB United Kingdom | #85 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 477 | 6 | Craig | 374 |
| AU Australia | #75 | ≈58,000 est. | ≈1 in 438 | 81 | Craig | 318 |
| CA Canada | #139 | ≈45,000 est. | ≈1 in 835 | 3 | Craig | 310 |
| ZA South Africa | #112 | ≈42,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.4K | — | Craig | 163 |
| NZ New Zealand | #58 | ≈11,000 est. | ≈1 in 429 | 12 | Craig | 202 |
| IE Ireland | #109 | ≈6,900 est. | ≈1 in 750 | 11 | Craig | 128 |
244,493 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); NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–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)
Craig 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, From Scots crag, ‘crag’; early forms mostly Crag. Johannes del Crag witnessed a charter under William I, post 1165.
as a nameScottish Surnames
In Irish, From Gaelic creag, ‘rocks’ or ‘crag’; a Scottish surname used as a first name.
as a nameIrish first names
In French, From Scottish Gaelic creag 'rock, crag'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
In English, Scottish form of CRAGG; first attested John del Crag 1143–1214 Black
as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames
A Scottish surname which is sometimes used as a first name. From the Gaelic word creag which means ‘rocks’ or ‘crag’. Crevan [Criomhthann] (m) ‘fox’. Aname which seems to have been chiefly used in Leinster.
as a nameIrish first names
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)
- Craig T. Nelsonb. 1944USAmerican actor and comedian (born 1944)
- Craig Armstrongb. 1959GBBritish composer
- Craig C. Mellob. 1960USAmerican biologist
- Craig Pearceb. 1961AUAustralian film actor (born 1961)
- Craig Fergusonb. 1962GBBritish actor
- Doug Emhoffb. 1964USnot in their usual nameSecond Gentleman of the United States from 2021 to 2025
- Craig Mazinb. 1971USAmerican director and producer
- Rian Johnsonb. 1973USnot in their usual nameAmerican filmmaker (born 1973)
- Roger Craig Smithb. 1975USAmerican actor (born 1975)
- Craig Davidb. 1981GBBritish singer (born 1981)
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 78 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 244K | #228 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 265 | #228 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 102 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1991 | 81 | #97 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 1991 | 49 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2007 | 12 | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2017 | 11 | #356 |
| CA Canada | Statistics Canada — First names at birth by sex at birth (Table 17-10-0147-01) | 2024 | 10 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 6 | #478 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1996 | 5 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2003 | 4 | — |
| CA Canada | Alberta Open Government — Frequency and Ranking of Baby Names by Year and Gender | 2023 | 3 | #1,074 |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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
- What does the name Craig mean, and where does it come from?
- person living by a steep or precipitous rock, from Gaelic creag Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- How do you pronounce Craig?
- A machine transcription gives /kɹeɪɡ/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Craig a male or female name?
- Craig 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.
- How common is the name Craig?
- In the United States, the national register counted 244,493 people named Craig in 2020, about 1 in 1.4 thousand residents.
- How common is Craig compared with other names?
- In the United States, Craig is the 158th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Craig have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 244 thousand people named Craig, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled craig.
What do you want to know about Craig?
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/craigThe 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, “Craig” — the 158th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.