Caridad
Feminine · “charity”
Cuba's patron is Our Lady of Charity. The story says three fishermen found a floating image of the Virgin in a storm in the bay of Nipe, with a board reading that she was the Lady of Charity; the shrine at El Cobre was built for her and she was declared patron of the island in 1916. Caridad is that word, and Cuban families have given it to daughters ever since.
How old is the name Caridad?
Caridad first appears in US birth records in 1924 — 101 years ago. The typical Caridad alive today was born around 1977, making them about 48 years old. About 1,600 people named Caridad are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Caridad most popular?
Caridad peaked in 1967, reaching #1581 nationally. Today it ranks #14942, 13,361 places below that high. See the whole 1967 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From caritas to Caridad
The story of Caridad
Faith, Hope and Charity were given as names across Catholic Europe as well as Protestant England, and Spanish produced Fe, Esperanza and Caridad — the last of these becoming, in Cuba, something more than a virtue name. The image at El Cobre is the focus of the island's national devotion, and its feast in September is kept by Cubans everywhere. American records carry Caridad from 1924, rising with Cuban migration and peaking in 1967, a few years after the largest wave of it.
Meaning
charity, love
From the Latin caritas, which the Christian tradition used for the highest of the three theological virtues — a word about self-giving love rather than about almsgiving, though English narrowed it to the second. Spanish caridad keeps the wider sense.
How the name formed
- caritas
- Caridad
Related forms: Caridad · Carità · Caridade · Charity
Pronouncing Caridad
kah-ree-DAHD
Three syllables, stress at the back — Spanish stresses the last syllable of a word ending in a consonant other than n or s. The final d is very light in Cuban Spanish, close to a th and sometimes barely there.
Nicknames for Caridad
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
- 1924
- Most girls named
- 197159 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1581reached in 1967
- Change vs 2018
- −16.7%5 in 2025, from 6
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.
Caridad in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Caridad in Spanish — same name
- Carità in Italian — related form
- Caridade in Portuguese — same name
- Charity in English — same name
Caridads among us
people named Caridad are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 321,453 born in 2025 was named Caridad
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Arlyn test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Caridad's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Arlyn climbed just as high around 1937, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Arlyn's path sketches the road Caridad is walking now.
Caridad 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
Caridad beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Caridad in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The meaning is one of the three great virtues and takes a word to give.
- Cachita is a genuine and much-loved Cuban familiar form.
- It is standard across the Spanish-speaking world rather than a variation.
- The devotion behind it is specific, national and well documented.
- English speakers read it as the word charity, which has narrowed to mean almsgiving and carries a different weight.
- The final consonant is hard for English speakers to place, and the stress falls where they do not expect it.
- It belongs to an older generation in America and carries that flavor.
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What they receive
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Caridad
Feminine · #14942 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Caridads are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,600 people named Caridad are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Caridad in 2025?
- Caridad ranks #14942 among US girl names in 2025, with 5 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Caridad?
- About 1 in every 321,453 US girls born in 2025 was named Caridad — 5 in all.
- Will my child share the name Caridad with classmates?
- Caridad will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Caridad
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Hester#14942 · Lyda#14942 · Zula#14942 · Zona#14942 · Ula#14942 · Belva#14942 · Lucetta#14942 · Leala#14942
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Caridad? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Caridad and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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