Kyrie
Meaning
"lord", from the liturgical phrase Kyrie eleison
The story
Kyrie is the Greek vocative for lord, lifted whole from the oldest sung prayer in the Christian liturgy, Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy. For decades America used it quietly and mostly for girls, a few hundred a decade from the 1980s. Then it changed lanes: about 1,100 in the 2000s became 10,500 in the 2010s, a tenfold jump sitting exactly on the career of a point guard who made the name famous on a jersey, and the gender flipped with it; this decade runs about 9,400 boys to 600 girls. A decade bucket cannot prove who was watching basketball, but a liturgical word does not usually change lanes by itself. It stands at 10,000 so far this decade. Families choosing it now get an unusual double exposure: a word sung in churches for fifteen centuries, and a crossover dribble.
Popularity, 1890–2024
Shape drawn from US Social Security baby-name records. Kyrie peaked in the 2020s.
When you meet Kyrie
Most people given the name Kyrie in the United States are children or teenagers today. The name belongs to this generation.
Estimated from US Social Security birth registrations and typical lifespans; a rough guide, not a rule.
The Kyrie deep dive
Whether you’re naming a baby or exploring your own name’s history, this is a personal letter, not a list: where Kyrie truly comes from, how it traveled, and what a century of records reveals. If you have grown a tree on nametree, it also considers how Kyrie fits with your family’s names and surname.
Keep exploring
Does Kyrie fit YOUR family?
nametree reads your family’s names and finds the ones that belong. Free, private, no ads.
Add Kyrie to your family’s tree →