Tristram
given name · Latin script
Meaning: from Celtic Drystan, from drest, drust 'tumult, din'; first attested Tristram Cementarius 1204 Cur
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/tɹɪstɹəm/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Tristram is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United Kingdom than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 147K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 1.2M
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 190K
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)
- Sources
- 131 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 147K (inferred from the name graph)
≈450 people, est.
Highest-authority source
United Kingdom, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
from Celtic Drystan, from drest, drust 'tumult, din'; first attested Tristram Cementarius 1204 Cur
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 5 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Tristram 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 | ≈450 est. | ≈1 in 147K | 777 | Tristram | 122 |
| US United States | 269 | 1 in 1.2M | 258 | Tristram | 131 |
| AU Australia | ≈130 est. | ≈1 in 198K | 1 | Tristram | 74 |
| PH Philippines | ≈93 est. | ≈1 in 1.2M | — | Tristram | 10 |
| MA Morocco | ≈32 est. | ≈1 in 1.1M | — | Tristram | 4 |
| NZ New Zealand | ≈26 est. | ≈1 in 190K | — | Tristram | 25 |
| GY Guyana | 1 | 1 in 750K | 1 | — | — |
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; Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register); SA BDM — Popular baby names South Australia (1944–present); Guyana — Official List of Electors July 2025. 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)
Tristram is also recorded in 3 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 male given name from the Celtic languages, variant of Tristan.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In German, Sagenheld Tri- stan. Dristram (S. 72) Tritsch-: s. Traut
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
In German, from the saga hero Tristan
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
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)
- Tristram Daltonb. 1738USAmerican politician (1738-1817)
- Tristram Shawb. 1786USAmerican politician (1786-1843)
- Tristram Speedyb. 1836British explorer
- Tris Coffinb. 1909USnot in their usual nameAmerican actor (1909-1990)
- Tristram Caryb. 1925GBEnglish composer (1925–2008)
- Tristram Powellb. 1940GBEnglish director (1940–2024)
- Tristram D. Wyattb. 1956GBBritish evolutionary biologist and author
- Tristram Shapeerob. 1966GBAmerican television director
- Tristram Huntb. 1974GBBritish historian, museum director and ex-politician (born 1974)
- Tristram Stuartb. 1977GBBritish author and activist
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 25 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GB United Kingdom | Surnames of England and Wales (taliesin-arlein.net, Sept 2002 electoral register) | 2002 | 777 | #8,111 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, voter-file supplement (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 3
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- What does the name Tristram mean, and where does it come from?
- from Celtic Drystan, from drest, drust 'tumult, din'; first attested Tristram Cementarius 1204 Cur Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- What are other forms of the name Tristram?
- In the etymology graph, Tristan, Tristen and Tristin are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How do you pronounce Tristram?
- A machine transcription gives /tɹɪstɹəm/ (IPA) for English.
- Is Tristram a male or female name?
- Tristram 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 Tristram have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 447 people named Tristram in the United Kingdom, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled tristram.
- How common is the name Tristram?
- In the United States, the national register counted 269 people named Tristram in 2020, about 1 in 1.2 million residents.
What do you want to know about Tristram?
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/tristramThe 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, “Tristram”. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.