Holiday Calendar

National Chris Day

Next celebratedMonday, September 28, 2026

Almost everyone knows a Chris, and National Chris Day is for all of them, the ones with a longer name behind it and the ones who were registered Chris and nothing else.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATESeptember 28
OBSERVED INInternationally
CATEGORYNames
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
“Attested by circulation, not by a record.
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A day that circulates without a source.

No founder, establishing organisation, proclamation or registry filing for National Chris Day has been located. The observance is attested only by circulation: holiday listings carry it on September 28, and it is marked on social media on the day itself.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

In 1961 the same five letters ranked 57th and 215th

National Chris Day is built on a name the US government has kept two separate sets of books on. One set is for boys. The other is for girls.

In 1961 the two ledgers peaked together. The Social Security Administration recorded 7,203 births registered as Chris on the boys' list that year. It recorded 1,571 on the girls' list.

The five letters were identical. The rankings were not. Chris finished 57th among boys and 215th among girls in the same twelve months, because the agency ranks every name separately by sex.

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ORIGINS

Chris Day history

INTRODUCTION

The federal record of US given names starts in 1880, and it starts incomplete. The Social Security Administration built its files from card applications, so anyone who never applied never appears. Many people born before 1937 never did.

Chris is in the very first file, with 49 births on the boys' list. It has been in every boys' file since.

CHAPTER 01

The second column opens

For more than three decades the record shows Chris on one side only. The girls' list finally opens in 1914. It opens small, at eight births.

That first entry ranked 2,675th among girls. It vanishes, returns, and from 1919 becomes close to permanent.

Nothing in the data explains the shift. The agency counts what is written on the form and publishes the total.

CHAPTER 02

One in five

The widening ran through the middle of the century. By the 1950s the girls' column accounted for 19.7% of every Chris registered, close to one in five.

That decade, not the louder one that followed, is the high-water mark for the split. The 1960s produced bigger raw numbers on both lists but a thinner share on the girls' side.

CHAPTER 03

The window closes

The share fell about as fast as it rose. By the 2010s the girls' column held 1.1% of Chris registrations. The most recent year the name appears on both US lists at once is 2024.

CHAPTER 04

A day with no author

National Chris Day sits on September 28, and nothing in the record says who put it there. No proclamation, no founding organisation, no registry filing. The phrase does not appear in the Federal Register at all.

It survives on circulation instead. Writing in 2019, Salvatore Cento complained in The Banner that "every day seems to have at least four national or even international dedications". A shop's Facebook page marked this one in 2024, on the day itself.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Chris in the first federal file

The Social Security Administration's name series opens with births this year, and 49 boys are already registered as Chris.

The girls' list records Chris

Eight births appear on the girls' side, ranked 2,675th that year.

Best boys' ranking on record

Chris reaches 55th among US boys, its highest position anywhere in the series, on 5,257 births.

Actuarial Note 139 opens the data

Michael W. Shackleford's study for the Office of the Chief Actuary creates the public given-name dataset the agency still publishes.

Last year on both US lists

Chris appears 424 times on the boys' list and seven times on the girls' list.

Boys only in both countries

Neither the US table nor the England and Wales table carries a girls' entry for the spelling.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Chris Day

RECORDS

A nickname on the form becomes a name in the count.

Neither national registry merges spellings, so a nickname written into the first-name field becomes a name in its own right in the official count. That single rule is why Chris has a 146-year statistical record instead of being folded into a longer name.

EVIDENCE

A unisex name you can actually check

Because rankings are produced separately for boys and girls, a single spelling can hold a different position on each list in the same year. Chris is one of the names where that split sits in the public record rather than in assumption.

SCALE

The count runs to six figures

The US record alone counts 170,417 births registered as Chris since 1880. Every one of them is a card application on which someone wrote the short form into the first-name field.

BY THE NUMBERS

National Chris Day by the Numbers

147,462
US Chris births, boys' list
22,955
US Chris births, girls' list
13.47%
Girls' list share of all Chris births
106 of 146
Years Chris ran in both columns
34
Boys named Chris, England and Wales 2025

MYTH VS FACT

Common Misconceptions

The myth

Chris is only a nickname, so it does not really count as a first name.

The truth

Both national registries count it as a name in its own right. The Social Security Administration tabulates from the first-name field of the card application and states that different spellings of similar names are not combined.

The myth

The girls' column proves those babies were girls.

The truth

The Social Security Administration warns that name data are not edited and that the sex associated with a name may be incorrect. The column records what the application said, not a verified count.

The myth

If a name is missing from a country's published list, nobody there was given it.

The truth

The Office for National Statistics redacts any name with a count of two or less in England and Wales, under Section 40 of the Freedom of Information Act. A blank means below the threshold, not zero.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Chris Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Look up the name in the federal file

The Social Security Administration publishes its full national name data, year by year, back to 1880. You can read the boys' and girls' counts for Chris yourself.

COMPARE

Compare the two national lists

The Office for National Statistics publishes every registered first name in England and Wales. Chris turns up there too, under a different disclosure rule and at a different rank.

ASK

Ask a Chris what the birth certificate says

Some were registered with the short form and some with a longer name. The registries only ever see what was written in the first-name field.

POST

Post the date the way businesses do

A shop's Facebook page marked September 28 on the day itself in 2024. A short post naming the Chrises you know does the same work.

READ

Read the small print on any name ranking

Rankings are produced per country, per year and per sex, so one spelling can sit in two places at once. Checking which list a number came from is most of the skill.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Chris Day?

1 / 9

In 1961, how did the Social Security Administration rank Chris on its two lists?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing located, so schools, banks and offices stay open.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

8sources
7primary records
7independently dated
Primary records
US Social Security Administration2026-03
Popular Baby Names: Beyond the Top 1000 Names
The full national name files, year by year, for births since 1880.
View source
US Social Security Administration2026-03
Background information for popular names
How the agency counts names, ranks them by sex, and hides the smallest totals.
View source
US Social Security Administration1998-06
Actuarial Note 139: Name Distributions in the Social Security Area
The 1998 study by actuary Michael W. Shackleford that started the agency's name data.
View source
UK Office for National Statistics2026-07-09
Baby names for boys in England and Wales, 2025
Every boy's first name registered in England and Wales in 2025, with counts and ranks.
View source
UK Office for National Statistics2026-07-09
Baby names for girls in England and Wales, 2025
The matching girls' table, in which the spelling Chris does not appear.
View source
US Office of the Federal Register
Federal Register document search for "National Chris Day"
A full-text search of US federal documents that returns no result for the phrase.
View source
Pretty Doll Palace2024-09-28
Facebook post marking National Chris Day
A shop marking the day on September 28 itself, in 2024.
View source
Additional coverage
The Banner2019-11-16
National Days Are A Gimmick, Not Genuine
Salvatore Cento on the crowding of the unofficial national-day calendar.
View source
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