Kieran
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Kieran is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country. Recorded meaning: From the Irish Gaelic personal name Ciarán, literally little dark one.
- IEIreland≈1 in 1.2K(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 2.7K
- AUAustralia≈1 in 3.6K
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 Kingdom (inferred from the name graph)
- 2 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 407 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 1.2K (inferred from the name graph)
≈25,000 people, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
From the Irish Gaelic personal name Ciarán, literally little dark one.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested in 1 language in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kieran 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | #332 | ≈25,000 est. | ≈1 in 2.7K | 16 | Kieran | 303 |
| US United States | — | 15,306 | 1 in 22K | 14K | Kieran | 407 |
| CN China | — | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 103K | — | Kieran | 16 |
| AU Australia | #502 | ≈7,200 est. | ≈1 in 3.6K | 95 | Kieran | 204 |
| IE Ireland | #112 | ≈4,300 est. | ≈1 in 1.2K | 25 | Kieran | 160 |
| NZ New Zealand | #373 | ≈930 est. | ≈1 in 5.3K | 10 | Kieran | 129 |
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: NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present); CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present); 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)
Kieran 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, ‘little dark one’; borne by St Kieran of Saighir and another St Kieran of Clonmacnoise.
as a nameIrish first names
Anglicized form of Gaelic 6 Ciarain ‘descendant of Ciardn', a byname from a diminutive of ciar ‘dark’, ‘black-haired’. It was borne by two Irish saints, a hermit of the 5th century and the founder of the monastery at Clonmacnoise (d. 547).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Metrs.: Khavkin, Chavkin, Havkin, Havken; Havlin (based on Khavele, a different dim. of Khave). Ciaran (a dim. of ciar dark, black), borne by a large number of early Ir. saints.
as a nameA dictionary of surnames
Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Ciaran. Variants: Kyran; Kieron (borne, for example, by the Irish actor Kieron Moore, b. 1925).
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In English, A unisex given name from Irish, an anglicized form of Ciarán.
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)
- Kieran Mulroneyb. 1965USAmerican actor
- Kieran Darcy-Smithb. 1965AUAustralian actor and director (1965-)
- Kieran Bewb. 1980GBBritish actor
- Kieran Culkinb. 1982USAmerican actor (born 1982)
- Kieran Richardsonb. 1984GBEnglish association football player (born 1984)
- Kieran Gibbsb. 1989GBEnglish association football player (born 1989)
- Kieran Trippierb. 1990GBEnglish association football player (born 1990)
- Robert Hallb. 1993GBnot in their usual nameEnglish association football player
- Kieran Tierneyb. 1997GBScottish association football player (born 1997)
- Lewis Hallb. 2004GBnot in their usual nameEnglish association football player (born 2004)
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 72 sources across 37 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 14K | #1,875 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.5K | #1,875 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 817 | — |
| AU Australia | NSW BDM — Popular baby names (1952–present) | 1995 | 95 | #88 |
| AU Australia | QLD BDM — Top 100 Baby Names Queensland (1960–present) | 1994 | 57 | — |
| IE Ireland | CSO — Irish Babies Names (1998–present) | 2017 | 25 | #220 |
| GB United Kingdom | NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present) | 2024 | 16 | #246 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 11 | — |
| NZ New Zealand | DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present) | 2023 | 10 | — |
| AU Australia | Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM) | 2016 | 6 | — |
| AU Australia | AU state BDM — consolidated top baby names (NSW + SA + QLD) | 1944 | 5 | — |
| GB United Kingdom | NISRA — Baby names Northern Ireland full list (1997–present) | 2025 | 3 | #395 |
Reference works 6
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
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 Kieran mean, and where does it come from?
- From the Irish Gaelic personal name Ciarán, literally little dark one. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Kieran a male or female name?
- Kieran 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 are other forms of the name Kieran?
- In the etymology graph, Kieron, Kyron and Keiran are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Kieran have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 25 thousand people named Kieran in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled kieran.
- How common is the name Kieran?
- In the United States, the national register counted 15,306 people named Kieran in 2020, about 1 in 22 thousand residents.
- How common is Kieran compared with other names?
- In the United Kingdom, Kieran is the 332nd most common given name of 404,737 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kieran?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kieranThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Kieran” — the 332nd most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.