Christina

423,584 people in America carry this name — ranked #109 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it krihs TEE nuh

3 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K R IH0 S T IY1 N AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 423,584 2020 Census
  • Rank #109 Common
  • As a surname 884 ranked #28,656 the other way round

Where Christina comes from and what it means

Greek in origin, reading literally as “Christian”.

Origins are a matter of scholarly argument rather than record, and a name can be traced more than one way. We state one reading and say where it came from.

Christina through the years

479,588 babies were given this name since 1880. The busiest year was 1985, with 16,683 of them.

80 90 00 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80s 90 00 10 20

Most people carrying it were born in the 1980s. It has been given less often of late.

Counted from Social Security card applications, so it covers births registered in the United States and leaves out names given to fewer than five babies in a year.

Middle names for Christina

Three syllables already, so a short middle name keeps the whole from running long.

Better avoided

  • Christina Ashley — runs together
  • Christina Amy — runs together
  • Christina Anna — runs together

Chosen by sound from the pronouncing dictionary, then ordered by how often the name is given. None of it is a rule — the ear decides.

Going quiet

Christina has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Millennials.

Is Christina a boy's or a girl's name?

0.1% men
423,090 women

As recorded on census returns, not as anyone thinks the name ought to be used.

Full names people carry

The census counts first names and surnames separately and never together, so these are estimates: how often the two halves would meet if they paired at random. They do not — names cluster by community — so read them as an order of magnitude, not a headcount.

Names with the same rhythm as Christina

Ends on the same sound

Same rhythm — 3 syllables, stress on the second

Matched on phonemes, not spelling, so the lists follow the ear rather than the page.

How to spell Christina

Christina is how 46% of them spell it — 918,177 people answer to the sound.

Each spelling is its own census entry — the counts never overlap, so the shares are of the group, not of the country.

Names about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Where the name Christina is most common in the US

In Alaska the name is given 1.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Alaska ×1.4
  • Delaware ×1.4
  • West Virginia ×1.3
  • the District of Columbia ×1.3
  • Wyoming ×1.3

Measured against the state's own share of births since 1960, so a small state can lead a big one. Counted from Social Security card applications.

Try it Name Matcher

Enter a surname and hear which first names sit well with it.

The matcher is confident about clashes — rhymes, doubled sounds, colliding stresses — because those are facts about the phonemes. Ordering the names that pass is a set of rules, not a verdict on beauty.

Open Name Matcher on its own page

Where this page gets its numbers

  • Counts, ranks and shares: U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census tabulations of first and last names occurring 100 or more times. Percentages, bands and groupings are our own arithmetic — the conclusions are ours, not the Bureau’s.
  • Pronunciation, syllables and rhyme groups: CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Carnegie Mellon University. The plain-English respelling is ours.
  • Origins and the forms a name takes in other languages: Charlotte Yonge, History of Christian Names, 1884 — a public-domain work. Scholarship has moved on since, so read it as one reading of a name, not the last word.

Below a hundred people we publish no figure at all — the same threshold the Census Bureau applies to us. What each source covers
Other names of Greek origin