Krista

66,762 people in America carry this name — ranked #754 of 923.

Carried mostly by the Millennials.

Say it KRIHS tuh

2 syllables · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K R IH1 S T AH0 — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 66,762 2020 Census
  • As a surname 192 ranked #100,469 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Krista

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.

Krista through the years

73,645 babies were given this name since 1937. The busiest year was 1986, with 3,065 of them.

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.

What goes well after Krista

Two syllables sit with almost anything — the join matters more than the length.

Better avoided

  • Krista Karen — same opening
  • Krista Ashley — runs together
  • Krista Amanda — 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

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

Boys or girls: who is called Krista?

0.1% men
66,705 women

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

Who has this name today

  • White alone (non-Hispanic) — 87.2%
  • Black or African American alone (non-Hispanic) — 2.8%
  • Hispanic or Latino origin — 5.0%
  • Two or more races — 3.3%
  • Asian and Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone — 1.1%
  • American Indian and Alaska Native alone — 0.7%

Categories are how people answered the census — a fact about the bearers, not a property of the name. Conclusions are ours, not the Census Bureau’s.

How Krista is spelled

Krista is how 26% of them spell it — 260,881 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.

This name in other languages

  • Zan Dant
  • Tine German
  • Kina Swiss
  • Stine German
  • Sasze Fris
  • Zasso Fris
  • Kristi Esth
  • Kriste Lett
  • Kersto Ill
  • Kersti Est
  • Kerste Lett
  • Hrista Ill
  • Tziasso Fris
  • Tsassen Fris

Forms of one name traced to the same root. Spellings are as the glossary printed them, so some look older than the versions in use today.

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 built the same way as Krista

Nothing else in the file ends on the same sound — a rare thing, and useful if you want a first name nobody will echo.

Same rhythm — 2 syllables, stress on the first

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

Try it Full-Name Estimator

Add a surname and see how many Americans carry the two together.

Open Full-Name Estimator 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