Kanan
#1,109 in 2025Boys' nameMeaning not yet documented
Kanan has been given to 1,820 babies in the U.S. since 1991. In 2025 it ranked #1,109 of 13,926 boys’ names in use. Its peak year was 2022, with 225 recorded.
Babies named Kanan, 2025
1 in 17,100
Kanan over time, 1880–2025
Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Kanan?
Everything below is computed from the 2025 data — the most recent year available.
- Among all babies, 2025
- 1 in 17,100
- 194 of 3,315,165 births
- Among boys only
- 1 in 8,800
- 0.01% of boys
- Rank, 2025
- #1,109
- of 13,926 boys’ names in use
- Coin-flip room size
- 11,846 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Kanan sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 2025 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 11,846 children born in 2025 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Kanan. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Kanans were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Kanan was born before 2021 — so the typical Kanan is around 4 today.
- Biggest decade
- 2020s
- 59.0% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 95.3%
- A modern name
- Recorded since 1950
- 1,809
- People you could plausibly meet
2020s — 59.0% of all recorded uses (1,067).
Is Kanan rising or falling?
Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.
- Rank vs 1 year ago
- +27
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 5 years ago
- +486
- Places climbed
- Rank vs 10 years ago
- +1,890
- Places climbed
- Births vs 10 years ago
- 4.97×
- More babies than then
- Share of its own peak
- 86.2%
- Peak was 2022 (225)
- Years since peak
- 3
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 52.1% average annual change
Spellings of Kanan
Kanan is not the most common spelling — Alan is, with 42.5% against Kanan's 0.21%.
Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.
Where Kanan is used
Across 2016–2025, Kanan was most concentrated in Louisiana — about 1 in 3,448 boys, against 1 in 12,343 across all states with data. It was least common in New Jersey (1 in 100,000).
Most concentrated
- 1Louisiana1 in 3,448
- 2South Carolina1 in 5,000
- 3North Carolina1 in 6,250
- 4Alabama1 in 6,667
- 5Georgia1 in 7,143
- 6Mississippi1 in 7,143
- 7Ohio1 in 9,091
- 8Michigan1 in 10,000
Shading is the share of that state's recorded boys given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings.
Kanan around the world
Where Kanan ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.
- England & Wales2016–2025#1,466in 2025
- Ireland2022–2024#785in 2024
- France2022–2025#4,091in 2025
- Canada2016–2024#1,698in 2024
Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques and Statistics Canada. ONS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.
Kanan by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
As a boy's name
Names similar to Kanan
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Kanan
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.