Kannon
Japanese form of the Sanskrit name Avalokiteshvara, meaning "the lord who regards the world."
Name Census estimates that about 5,856 living Americans carry the first name Kannon. It is a predominantly male name (97.8% of registrations). The average person named Kannon today is around 11 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Kannon births was 2020 (533 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Kannon. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
Key insights
- • Although Kannon is used almost entirely for boys, the SSA data does show 130 girls registered with the name since 1880.
- • Kannon is a relatively new arrival in the SSA data. The average bearer is just 11 years old, meaning it gained most of its traction in the last two decades.
People living today
5.9K
~ 1 in 58,530 Americans
Peak year
2020
533 babies that year
Average age
11
years old
2024 SSA rank
#983
Tracked since 1972
Census
Kannon in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 3,462 people with the first name Kannon, which placed it at #5,081 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#5,081
National first-name rank
People counted
3.5K
3,462 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
1.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
62.5% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Kannon
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kannon is White at 62.5%. The next largest groups are Black (19.2%) and Two or More Races (9.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Kannon described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Kannon at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White62.5% · 2,165
- Black or African American19.2% · 665
- Two or more races9.6% · 334
- Hispanic or Latino6.0% · 208
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.5% · 53
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.1% · 37
Gender
Gender distribution for Kannon
Kannon leans heavily male at 97.8% of total registrations, but 130 girls have also been registered with the name over the years, giving it a small but present crossover presence.
Kannon as a male name
- Ranked #983 in 2024
- 228 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2020 (525 births)
Kannon as a female name
- Ranked #10,636 in 2024
- 9 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2019 (12 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kannon leans strongly male. 3,335 people counted with this name were male (96.3%), compared with 129 female bearers (3.7%).
Popularity
Kannon: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Kannon from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 2,848 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Kannon remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Kannon by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Kannon during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Kannons live
The SSA's state-level files cover 39 states and territories. Texas, California, Georgia recorded the most babies named Kannon, while Montana, District of Columbia, Minnesota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 116 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Kannon
The name Kannon has its origins in the Sanskrit name Avalokiteśvara, which means "the lord who gazes down" or "the lord of what we see." This name refers to the bodhisattva of compassion in Mahayana Buddhism. The name Kannon is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit name, Guanyin.
The name first appeared in Japan during the 6th century CE, when Buddhism was introduced to the country. The bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, known as Kannon in Japan, was widely revered and depicted in Buddhist art and literature. The name gained popularity as a given name for both males and females in Japan due to its association with compassion and spiritual enlightenment.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Kannon is in the Nihon Shoki, a historical record of ancient Japan compiled in the 8th century CE. The text mentions a prince named Kannon no Ōkimi, who lived in the late 6th century.
Throughout Japanese history, several notable individuals have borne the name Kannon, including Kannon Hōshi, a Buddhist monk and calligrapher who lived in the 15th century. Another famous Kannon was Kannon Watanabe, a 16th-century samurai and military commander who served under the Tokugawa shogunate.
In the realm of art, Kannon Natsume was a renowned Japanese painter and lacquer artist who lived in the late 19th century and was known for his exceptional works depicting Buddhist deities, including the bodhisattva Kannon.
The name Kannon has also been associated with notable figures in Japanese literature. Kannon Shozaburo was a renowned poet and haiku master who lived in the 18th century and was widely celebrated for his mastery of traditional Japanese poetic forms.
Another prominent individual bearing the name was Kannon Tomori, a 19th-century philosopher and scholar who made significant contributions to the study of Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism in Japan.
People
Kannon + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Kannon as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with K
Other first names starting with K with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Kannon: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Kannon?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 5,856 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Kannon going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 58,530 US residents.
Is Kannon a common name?
We classify Kannon as "Rare". It ranks above 96.8% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 5,905 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Kannon most popular?
The single biggest year for Kannon was 2020, when 533 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Kannon is about 11 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Kannon in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 3,462 people with the name Kannon, or 1.15 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #5,081 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Kannon in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Kannon?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kannon leans strongly male. 3,335 people counted with this name were male (96.3%), compared with 129 female bearers (3.7%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Kannon?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kannon is White at 62.5%. The next largest groups are Black (19.2%) and Two or More Races (9.6%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Kannon most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Kannon in the 2020 Census, accounting for 62.5% (2,165 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Kannon in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Kannon a male name?
Yes, 97.8% of people registered as Kannon in the SSA data are male. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Kannon still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Kannon in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Kannon can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people are named Kannon?
Want to know how many Americans are named Kannon? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.