Kate

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Kate is a given name, most frequently recorded in Australia, where it is the 79th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: Pet form of Katherine, sometimes used independently.

rarermore common
  • AUAustralia1 in 441◐
  • IEIreland1 in 503
  • NZNew Zealand1 in 1K

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈98K ●

across 11 countries

4 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
525 ●

1.2M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 1.2K ◐

Latvia

Spellings & scripts●

KateLatin · English●1.3M records
КатеCyrillic · Macedonian●296 records
ΚατεGreek · Greek●9 records
카테Hangul · Korean●1 records

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Cate in IN India.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

Pet form of Katherine, sometimes used independently.

Sources 1

  • Irish first names

Attested across 21 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Kate is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
AU Australia#79262,474195K rec.—93Kate282
GB United Kingdom#215160,566107K rec.—9Kate270
US United States#51986,617715K rec.1 in 3.8K87KKate525
CA Canada#37833,37024K rec.—9Kate215
PH Philippines#69232,59518K rec.——Kate140
IE Ireland#6918,5294.2K rec.—204Kate143
NG Nigeria#46416,46122K rec.——Kate89
RU Russia—9,8717.2K rec.——Kate126
NZ New Zealand#838,3534.9K rec.—17Kate143
ZA South Africa#6695,7126.4K rec.——Kate108
DE Germany—4,9384.7K rec.—4Kate134
DK Denmark#3582,413△848 rec.1 in 2.4K2.4KKate91

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English1.3M73%
  • Spanish65K4%
  • 60K3%
  • Hindi47K3%
  • Portuguese41K2%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English1,274,60673%
Spanish65,4624%
59,6033%
Hindi46,6663%
Portuguese40,6872%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Kate is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • Spanish given name149K records spelled Kate40 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Brazil, Philippines, France

    Languages: Spanish, Portuguese, French

    Also written Kätë, Käte, Katê, Kätê, Kätę

  • Hindi given name91K records spelled Kate2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in India, United States, United Kingdom, Philippines

    Also written Käte

  • a separate given name66K records spelled Kate6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada

    Also written Käte, Katē, Kāṭe, Kǎtè, KaTé

  • Indonesian given name7.6K records spelled Kate4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Philippines, United States, Indonesia, United Kingdom

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written Káté, Käte

  • English given name5.3K records spelled Kate160 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada

    Languages: English, Hebrew, German

    Also written Katie, Katy, קייטי, เคท, Kaetie

  • Japanese given name3.9K records spelled Kate3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Philippines

    Also written Katē, Käte

  • Finnish given name3.2K records spelled Kate6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Finland, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: Finnish, Estonian

    Also written Käte, Kåtë, Kätê

72 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Kate is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, A diminutive of the female given name Katherine and related names, also used as a formal given name.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In Swedish, Kate är en engelsk smekform till → Katarina.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

  • In English, Aboriginal: lookout

    as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…

  • In pi, locative singular masculine/neuter of kata, which is past participle of karoti (“to do”)

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • In dgc, to set the _balaybay_ snare (type of snare with several rattan loops set around a tame rooster, used to catch a wild rooster in the jungle)

    as a wordAustronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD), CLDF v2.0

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

01K2K3K1900195020002.5K · 2007

Show as table
Kate in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
1880299
1881267
1882293
1883294
1884344
1885309
1886335
1887331
1888360
1889362
1890352
1891305
1892345
1893323
1894328
1895262
1896303
1897267
1898297
1899219
1900297
1901196
1902213
1903202
1904213
1905183
1906196
1907184
1908191
1909183
1910206
1911216
1912260
1913257
1914311
1915339
1916318
1917322
1918302
1919309
1920255
1921289
1922234
1923225
1924222
1925173
1926164
1927151
1928131
1929122
1930111
193199
193297
193383
193494
1935105
193695
193781
193895
1939107
194094
1941111
1942101
1943102
194489
194576
194689
1947120
1948109
1949111
1950107
1951112
1952101
1953117
1954101
1955121
1956108
1957163
1958156
1959173
1960208
1961220
1962218
1963207
1964211
1965203
1966179
1967172
1968195
1969224
1970294
1971225
1972257
1973275
1974352
1975477
1976530
1977828
1978998
19791,260
19801,329
19811,397
19821,341
19831,333
19841,553
19851,491
19861,442
19871,449
19881,153
19891,080
19901,038
1991979
1992839
1993785
1994752
1995718
1996811
1997894
19981,139
19991,400
20001,397
20011,626
20021,667
20032,055
20042,218
20052,404
20062,441
20072,550
20082,421
20091,989
20101,490
20111,791
20121,643
20131,738
20141,620
20151,477
20161,389
20171,170
20181,163
2019989
2020765
2021758
2022695
2023640
2024572
2025576

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1850190019502000Käthe Kollwitz, b. 1867Kate Mulgrew, b. 1955Gwyneth Paltrow, b. 1972Sia, b. 1975Kate Winslet, b. 1975Katie Holmes, b. 1978Kate Hudson, b. 1979Jacinda Ardern, b. 1980Kate Mara, b. 1983Kate McKinnon, b. 1984
  • Käthe Kollwitzb. 1867DEnot in their usual nameGerman printmaker and sculptor (1867–1945)
  • Kate Mulgrewb. 1955USAmerican actress
  • Gwyneth Paltrowb. 1972USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, entrepreneur, writer and singer (born 1972)
  • Siab. 1975AUnot in their usual nameAustralian singer and songwriter (born 1975)
  • Kate Winsletb. 1975GBEnglish actress (born 1975)
  • Katie Holmesb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1978)
  • Kate Hudsonb. 1979USAmerican actress and singer (born 1979)
  • Jacinda Ardernb. 1980NZnot in their usual namePrime Minister of New Zealand (2017–2023)
  • Kate Marab. 1983USAmerican actress (born 1983)
  • Kate McKinnonb. 1984USAmerican actress and comedian (born 1984)

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 99 sources across 51 countries.

Official registers attesting Kate
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202087K#610
NO NorwaySSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population)—3.6K#768
DK DenmarkDanmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts)—2.4K#224
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20222.1K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—2.1K#4,915
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—2K#5,986
HR CroatiaDZS — Imena i prezimena (per-token lookup form)20211.6K#419
LV LatviaPMLP — Personvārdu meklētājs (per-name population-register lookup)—1.6K#313
LV LatviaPMLP — Personu vārdi (given names in population register)—1.6K—
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—1.5K#1,319
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—1.3K#1,784
NO NorwaySSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891)20251.2K—

Reference works 6

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 1,327 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Kate?
We estimate roughly 98 thousand people bear Kate (counting its spellings and scripts) across 11 countries in our records.
In which country does Kate have the most bearers?
Kate is most frequently recorded in Australia, where it is most often spelled kate.
How common is Kate compared with other names?
In Australia, Kate is the 79th most common given name of 197,734 given names recorded there.
Is Kate a male or female name?
Kate is a female name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Kate mean?
Recorded meaning: Pet form of Katherine, sometimes used independently.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/kate

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Kate” — the 79th most common given name in Australia. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Kate parses inside a full name →