Tristan, Tristram or Tristen is a given name derived from Welsh drust (meaning "noise", "tumult"), influenced by the French word triste and Welsh/Cornish/Breton trist, both of which mean "bold" or "sad", "sorrowful". The name owes its popularity to the character of Tristan, one of the Knights of the Round Table and the tragic hero of Tristan and Iseult. Alternate form Tristram has also been in use since the Middle Ages and was the more usual form of the name after the publication of the 1759-60 comic novel Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. Later usage of the name Tristan was influenced by Richard Wagner's 1860 opera Tristan und Isolde. The name Tristan became particularly well-used in the United States by parents who had attended college after it was used for a character on All Creatures Great and Small, a 1978 British television series based on the memoirs of James Herriot. The popular series aired in the United States on PBS. The name Tristan later became popular with parents of all classes after Brad Pitt played Tristan Ludlow in the popular 1994 movie Legends of the Fall, and also increased the usage of variant spellings Tristen, Tristin, Triston and Trystan, all of which also appeared among the 1,000 most popular names for boys in the United States in 1995. Usage of the name also increased after Tristan was used for characters in the 2006 film Tristan & Isolde and the 2007 fantasy film Stardust. Tristan has been consistently among the top 1000 names given to baby boys in the United States since 1971. The name has been used in the Anglosphere and in other countries such as Belgium, France, Iceland, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, and Spain.

People with the mononym

Tristan

Tristán

People with the given name

Tristan

Tristram

Tristán

Tristen

Tristin

Triston

Trystan

Trishton

Thriston

People with the surname

Tristan

Tristán

Fictional characters