Kurt

74,867 people in America carry this name — ranked #693 of 923.

A name of the post-war decades.

Say it KURT

1 syllable · the capitals are the stressed part

Phonetic transcription

K ER1 T — ARPAbet, as published in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The digit on a vowel marks its stress.

  • People counted 74,867 2020 Census
  • Rank #693 Familiar
  • Per 100,000 24.8 about 1 in 4,427 people
  • As a surname 1,431 ranked #18,992 the other way round

The meaning and origin of Kurt

Teutonic in origin, reading literally as “bold speech”.

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.

Kurt name popularity by year

85,730 babies were given this name since 1894. The busiest year was 1964, with 3,166 of them.

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

Most people carrying it were born in the 1960s. 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 Kurt

One syllable, so a longer middle name gives the whole a rhythm.

Better avoided

  • Kurt Thomas — runs together
  • Kurt Kevin — same opening
  • Kurt Timothy — 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

Kurt has more than halved in three decades. The people carrying it belong mostly to the Baby Boomers.

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

99.9% men
52 women

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

This name in other languages

  • Kunz German
  • Cort Danish
  • Kunds German
  • Kunat Lus
  • Cohat Prov
  • Quenes French
  • Kunsch Slav
  • Kunrat Russian
  • Kunrad Bohemian
  • Kuhnrat German
  • Coenrad Dutch

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.

Same syllables and stress as Kurt

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 — 1 syllables, stress on the first

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

The most common full names

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 about as common

The nearest entries above and below by number of people.

Where in America Kurt is thickest on the ground

In Wisconsin the name is given 3.4 times as often as it is across the country.

  • Wisconsin ×3.4
  • Iowa ×2.4
  • Hawaii ×2.3
  • Nebraska ×2.2
  • Michigan ×2.1

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 Birth Plan Worksheet

Tick what matters, print it, hand it over. Nothing is stored anywhere.

Open Birth Plan Worksheet 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 Teutonic origin