Kannan
Kannan was given to 17 boys in 2025, #5,497 among boys’ names; 345 Americans have been recorded with it since 1998 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Kannan by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
What does Kannan mean?
Wiktionary, English section
Kannan is “a male given name from Tamil or Malayalam.”
Transliteration of Tamil கண்ணன் (kaṇṇaṉ) and Malayalam കണ്ണൻ (kaṇṇaṉ).
Meaning: Wiktionary, English section, as of Sep 25, 2026 (CC BY‑SA 4.0).
How popular is Kannan?
#5,497 among boys’ names, 2025
Kannan rose from #5,869 in 2015 to #5,497 in 2025 among boys’ names; its share of boys born rose from 7.8 to 10.0 per million.
26 babies in 2018, the peak
Kannan peaked in 2018, when 26 boys were given it, #4,050 among boys’ names. The 17 births of 2025 are 65% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 17 | #5,497 | 10.0 |
| 2024 | 13 | #6,637 | 7.5 |
| 2023 | 25 | #4,276 | 14.6 |
| 2022 | 22 | #4,621 | 12.6 |
| 2021 | 22 | #4,554 | 12.6 |
| 2020 | 16 | #5,570 | 9.3 |
| 2019 | 22 | #4,555 | 12.3 |
| 2018 | 26 | #4,050 | 14.3 |
| 2017 | 20 | #4,840 | 10.8 |
| 2016 | 20 | #4,862 | 10.5 |
Every recorded year (26)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million boys |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 15 | #5,869 | 7.8 |
| 2014 | 11 | #7,289 | 5.7 |
| 2013 | 7 | #10,192 | 3.7 |
| 2012 | 5 | #13,239 | 2.6 |
| 2011 | 11 | #7,237 | 5.8 |
| 2010 | 10 | #7,860 | 5.2 |
| 2009 | 13 | #6,629 | 6.6 |
| 2008 | 6 | #11,817 | 2.9 |
| 2007 | 9 | #8,570 | 4.3 |
| 2006 | 9 | #8,384 | 4.4 |
| 2003 | 9 | #7,542 | 4.6 |
| 2002 | 6 | #10,041 | 3.1 |
| 2001 | 10 | #6,705 | 5.1 |
| 2000 | 9 | #7,104 | 4.6 |
| 1999 | 6 | #9,296 | 3.1 |
| 1998 | 6 | #9,055 | 3.1 |
Ranks and shares: boys’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all boys SSA recorded that year.
Is Kannan a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Kannan has been recorded only for boys: SSA lists no girls with the name in 26 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Kannan: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Kannan, and how old are they?
An estimated 342 Americans named Kannan and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 9 years old and half are between 5 and 16. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 895 people named Kannan (40 women and girls, 855 men and boys). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 232 born in the U.S. The Census count is 3.9 times that prediction. Possible reasons: the Census counts people born abroad, whom SSA’s files leave out, and it records the name people give, which SSA may have recorded under another spelling or as part of a compound name.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
Names spelled alike
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 30,199 babies since 1880, Kannan is the eighth most given (1.1% of them). In 2025 it was given to 17 of their 1,180 babies (1.4%), again the eighth most given.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Kannan
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Kannan and names like it
- Compare Kannan and CannonBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2010sKannan peaked in 2018.
- Georgia’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Kannan since 1910.
- The top names of 2018The year the most babies were named Kannan.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Kannan alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with KMost given first.