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.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Kishan with official rankings and popularity over time.
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
Census
Kishan in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 1,704 people with the first name Kishan, which placed it at #8,503 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
#8,503
National first-name rank
People counted
1.7K
1,704 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.6
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Asian and Pacific Islander
84.3% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Kishan
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kishan is Asian/Pacific Islander at 84.3%. The next largest groups are Black (5.9%) and White (4.0%). 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 Kishan 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 Kishan at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Asian and Pacific Islander84.3% · 1,436
- Black or African American5.9% · 100
- White4.0% · 69
- Two or more races3.6% · 61
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.3% · 22
- Hispanic or Latino0.9% · 16
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.
How common was Kishan in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 1,704 people with the name Kishan, or 0.56 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #8,503 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 Kishan 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 Kishan?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kishan leans strongly male. 1,660 people counted with this name were male (97.5%), compared with 42 female bearers (2.5%). 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 Kishan?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kishan is Asian/Pacific Islander at 84.3%. The next largest groups are Black (5.9%) and White (4.0%). 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 Kishan most often in the Census?
Asian/Pacific Islander is the largest reported group for people named Kishan in the 2020 Census, accounting for 84.3% (1,436 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 Kishan in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
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.
Is Kishan still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Kishan 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 Kishan 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 have the name Kishan?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.