King is a male first name. In very rare cases it is also used for girls.
The name King isn’t among the current fashionable names in our top 10 stats, but nonetheless, it’s still very popular and common. In our SmartGenius ranking of all boys names, King ranks 166. Recently, out of every 10,000 newborn boys, approximately 13 were named King. In the entire USA, approximately 30,167 people – children, adults and seniors – currently bear the name King. That is 0.01 % of all living Americans.
King is name of English origin. It is a status name derived from the Old English word ‘cyning’ which means ‘king’ or ‘ruler.’ The name King is associated with royalty, leadership and authority. It became a popular as a first name in the 20th century.
What is a king? A king is the head of a monarchy, who holds the position of highest authority in a royal or imperial hierarchy. He typically inherits the position by birth and rules for life or until abdication. In the past and some current cultures, the king is seen as a divine or semi-divine figure.
For more than 140 years, parents decide to name their son King annualy. This means that there have been boys named King who witnessed the first Labor Day parade in the U.S. or followed Albert Einstein's career. The name has 'always been there', but never ranked in the top 100, and thus men named King have consistently been special. Since 2000, however, the name has experienced a certain popularity: in 2017, it holds its present record of #149 in the list of the most popular boys' names.
In years where the graph has no value, the name King was given less than five times or even none at all in the entire USA.
King has never been ranked higher than #149. In 2022, he rivaled the 216 names that preceded him on the list. In total, 1,634 boys named King were born in this year. For comparison: 30 years earlier, in 1992, when possibly the parents of the now very young King were born, there have been 40 newborns who received this name.
Well, you might say, you probably figured that out yourself! But what you might not know is: The letter K is a real popular first letter for boys’ names. That’s because 7.9% of all common boys’ names in the US begin with this letter. Only the first letters J, A and D are more common for boys' names.
With four letters, the name King is shorter than most other given names. In fact, only 5.5% of all common first names in the US consist of exactly four letters. Just 1.2% of all first names are even shorter, while 93% consist of more than four letters. On average, first names in the US (not counting hyphenated names) are 6.5 letters long. There are no significant differences between boys' and girls' names.
That means that if 7.9% of all boys' names start with a K, this initial letter occurs more than twice as often as all 26 letters on average. Interesting detail: of all the boys’ names that begin with a K, Kenneth is the most common.
If your name is King and someone asks after your name, you can of course just tell them what it is. But sometimes that isn't so easy - what if it's too loud, and you don't understand them well? Or what if the other person is so far away that you can see them but not hear them? In these situations, you can communicate your name in so many other ways: you call spell it, sign it, or even use a flag to wave it...
So that everyone really understands you when you have to spell the name King, you can simply say:
Koala
Igloo
Nut
Goat
Braille is made up of dots, which the blind and visually impaired can feel to read words.
King
King
Just use American Sign Language!
These flags are used for maritime communication - each flag represents a letter.
K
I
N
G
In the navy, sailors of two ships might wave flags to each other to send messages. A sailor holds two flags in specific positions to represent different letters.
K
I
N
G
In Morse code, letters and other characters are represented only by a series of short and long tones. For example, a short tone followed by a long tone stands for the letter A. King sounds like this:
