Kishan
A masculine given name of Hindu origin meaning "farmer" or "lord of the land".
Name Census estimates that about 1,009 living Americans carry the first name Kishan. The name is used almost exclusively for boys. The average person named Kishan today is around 26 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Kishan births was 1997 (68 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Kishan. 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.
People living today
1.0K
~ 1 in 339,697 Americans
Peak year
1997
68 babies that year
Average age
26
years old
2024 SSA rank
#8,655
Tracked since 1973
Popularity
Kishan: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Kishan from the 1970s through to the 2020s, spanning 6 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1990s, with 476 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1990s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Kishan 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 Kishan during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Kishans live
The SSA's state-level files cover 7 states and territories. New Jersey, California, New York recorded the most babies named Kishan, while Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 48 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Kishan
The given name Kishan originates from the Sanskrit language, one of the oldest Indo-Aryan languages dating back to ancient times in the Indian subcontinent. The name is derived from the Sanskrit word "krishi," which means agriculture or cultivation. It is believed that the name was initially used to refer to people involved in farming or agricultural activities.
In Hindu mythology, Kishan is also one of the many names used to address the god Krishna, the eighth avatar of the deity Vishnu. The name is found in various Hindu scriptures, including the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata, which are ancient epic texts that date back to around the 5th century BCE.
One of the earliest recorded examples of the name Kishan can be found in the Puranas, a vast collection of ancient Hindu religious texts. The Puranas describe Kishan as a powerful and mischievous incarnation of Lord Vishnu, who played a pivotal role in the epic battle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.
Throughout history, there have been several notable figures who bore the name Kishan. One of the earliest was Kishan Chand Nanda, a ruler of the Nanda Empire in ancient India, who reigned from around 424 BCE to 413 BCE. Another prominent figure was Kishan Singh Manhas, a 17th-century ruler of the Jammu and Kashmir region, who played a significant role in the region's history.
In more recent times, Kishan Lal Sharma (1907-1995) was an Indian politician and freedom fighter who served as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal. Kishan Maharaj (1923-2008) was a renowned Indian spiritual leader and author who founded the Shree Raj Rajeshwar Ashram in Mumbai.
Kishan Kant (1930-2002) was an acclaimed Hindi writer and novelist who received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel "Rajnitik Khel" in 1984. Kishan Reddy (born 1959) is an Indian politician and the current Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Development of North Eastern Region in the Government of India.
It is worth noting that the name Kishan has been widely used across various regions of the Indian subcontinent, and there have been many other notable individuals bearing this name throughout history.
People
Kishan + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Kishan 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
Kishan: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Kishan?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,009 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Kishan 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 339,697 US residents.
Is Kishan a common name?
We classify Kishan as "Rare". It ranks above 90.2% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 1,029 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Kishan most popular?
The single biggest year for Kishan was 1997, when 68 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Kishan is about 26 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
Is Kishan a male name?
Yes, 100.0% of people registered as Kishan 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.
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.