Christian

Meaning & origin

One of the oldest "statement" names in the Western stock, Christian has been a baptismal name since the Middle Ages, when, perhaps surprisingly, it was often a woman's name in England, and later the signature name of Danish kings, ten of whom have borne it. John Bunyan's everyman pilgrim in The Pilgrim's Progress fixed it in the English-speaking Protestant imagination.

In American records it has been present continuously since 1880, but its modern peak came in 1996, when it rode the same wave that lifted Nicholas, Alexander, and Zachary. It has been easing downward since 1997, yet the descent is gentle: Christian still ranked 96th in 2025, given to about 1 in 469 newborn boys. Its strongest states are currently Delaware, Mississippi, and Alaska.

For parents, that trajectory is arguably good news, Christian now feels established rather than trendy, recognizable everywhere without dominating any classroom. The overt religious meaning is the one consideration that sets it apart from otherwise similar polished classics; for many families that is precisely the point.

Christian comes from the Latin baptismal name Christianus, "a Christian, follower of Christ", from Greek christianos, itself built on christos, "anointed", the Greek rendering of the Hebrew title Messiah. It was in use as a given name in medieval Europe for both sexes; in medieval England it was, if anything, more common for women (often in forms like Christiana). John Bunyan gave the name to the hero of The Pilgrim's Progress (1678), and it became a fixture of the Danish royal house, borne by ten kings of Denmark. In the United States the name appears in the very first Social Security cohort of 1880 and has never left the charts, though its modern heyday came in the 1990s.

Read more: Christian on Wikipedia