Cari
Feminine · “Welsh caru”
Cari is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 12,757 girls against 113 boys since 1880.
Cariad is the Welsh word for a sweetheart, and it is one of the most used endearments in the language. It comes from caru, to love, and the same verb gives the name Ceri, which English spells Cari and reads as a form of Carrie.
How old is the name Cari?
Cari first appears in US birth records in 1941 — 84 years ago. The typical Cari alive today was born around 1976, making them about 49 years old. About 12,000 people named Cari are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cari most popular?
Cari peaked in 1976, reaching #379 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 9,078 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From caru to Cari
The story of Cari
Caru is the ordinary Welsh verb for to love, and cariad, the noun, means both love and a beloved person; it is used as a direct term of address in a way English has no equivalent for, since English lost its own endearments to sentimentality and now borrows from French or falls back on darling. Welsh has a whole set: cariad, calon, meaning heart, cyw, a chick, bach, small, used constantly after a name. Ceri is a name built on the same root and is used for both sexes in Wales; it is also a river in Ceredigion, and the county's own name is from Ceredig, an early ruler. So the name sits at a point where a verb, a river, a region and a term of endearment all meet, which is common in Welsh naming and rare in English.
Meaningscholars disagree
Welsh caru, to love
Cari is most often an American short form of Caroline or Karen. It coincides with Welsh Ceri, a name from caru, to love, and also from the river Ceri and the region Ceredigion. In Norse, Kari is a man's name and the name of a wind giant. The record does not distinguish these. The peak is 1976.
How the name formed
- caru
- Ceri
- Cari
Related forms: Ceri · Carrie · Kari
Pronouncing Cari
KAR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first. Welsh Ceri is KEH-ree with a different first vowel. Cari, Carrie and Kari are homophones in American English.
Nicknames for Cari
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1941
- Most girls named
- 1976541 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #379reached in 1976
- Change vs 2023
- −63.0%10 in 2025, from 27
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Cari in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ceri in Welsh — related form
- Carrie in English — spelling variant
- Kari in Norse — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Georgia, Ohio.
Caris among us
people named Cari are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Cari
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cari
- #9457
- Cari on the 2025 chart
- #776
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cari went to 10 girls in 2025, but Kari, Khari and Kaari and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 184, which makes it the 776th most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,681 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 8,735 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 160,727 for Cari itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Edwina test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cari's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Edwina climbed just as high around 1943, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Edwina's path sketches the road Cari is walking now.
Cari sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Cari beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cari in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Caroline is available as a formal version.
- Four letters and two syllables, impossible to mispronounce.
- It works in several languages.
- Carrie and Kari are both commoner spellings.
- It reads as a short form rather than a full name.
- The first syllable spells an English word.
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What they receive
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Cari
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Caris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Cari are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cari?
- Cari is one of 5 recorded spellings. Kari is the more common one — 90 births in 2025 against 10 for Cari.
- How popular is the name Cari in 2025?
- Cari ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cari?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Cari — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cari with classmates?
- Cari will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cari
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cari? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cari and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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