Carla
Feminine · “free man”
Carla is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 150,390 girls against 425 boys since 1880.
Carla is the Italian, Spanish and German feminine of Carl, and behind Carl stands the old Germanic word for a free man — the same root that gave Europe Charlemagne, crowned Carolus in the year 800. Two syllables, five letters, and a first sound that opens wide before it settles: KAR-lah. It has been said in half a dozen languages without needing a single letter changed.
How old is the name Carla?
Carla first appears in US birth records in 1890 — 135 years ago. The typical Carla alive today was born around 1966, making them about 59 years old. About 133,000 people named Carla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carla most popular?
Carla peaked in 1965, reaching #76 nationally. Today it ranks #1082, 1,006 places below that high. See the whole 1965 chart.
Carla appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Karl to Carla
The story of Carla
The root is the Old High German karl, a free man of no noble rank, which became a personal name and then an imperial one: Carolus Magnus, Charlemagne, king of the Franks from the eighth century. His name spread the stem across Europe, where it settled as Karl in German, Carlo in Italian, Carlos in Spanish and Charles in French and English. Carla is the straightforward feminine of the Italian and Spanish forms, and it moved into American use with immigration from southern Europe and Latin America — which is part of why the name is still strongest in California, Texas and Florida.
Meaning
free man; a man of the common people
From Germanic karl, 'free man' or 'freeman, peasant' — the source of Carl, Karl, Charles and Carolus. Carla is the feminine form built on that stem in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and German.
How the name formed
- Karl
- Carolus
- Carlo
- Carla
Related forms: Karla · Carla · Carlotta · Carlota · Charlotte · Carolina
Pronouncing Carla
KAR-lah
Stress on the first syllable. English speakers often finish it as KAR-luh; Spanish and Italian speakers keep a fuller final -ah. Both are the same name, and neither needs correcting.
Nicknames for Carla
High
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
- 1890
- Most girls named
- 19615,817 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #76reached in 1965
- Change vs 2022
- −23.4%223 in 2025, from 291
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.
Carla in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Karla in German, Czech, Scandinavian — spelling variant
- Carla in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese — same name
- Carlotta in Italian — related form
- Carlota in Spanish — related form
- Charlotte in French, English — related form
- Carolina in Latin, Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Carlas among us
people named Carla are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 7,207 born in 2025 was named Carla
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Carla
- #1082
- Carla on the 2025 chart
- #480
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Carla went to 223 girls in 2025, but Karla is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 563, which makes it the 480th most-given girls’ name of the year — 602 places above the chart.
- Karla340
- Carla223
About 1 girl in 2,855 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 7,207 for Carla 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 Genevieve test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Carla's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Genevieve climbed just as high around 1914, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Genevieve's path sketches the road Carla is walking now.
Carla 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
Where Carla is headed
Carla should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Carla beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Carla in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Works unchanged in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German — no translation, no respelling at a border.
- Spelled the way it sounds, and short enough to write out before a child can read.
- Descends from a documented Germanic stem carried across Europe since the early Middle Ages.
- Has an established short form in Carly, plus the Spanish diminutive Carlita, without depending on either.
- Karla with a K is a live competing spelling, so expect to say 'Carla with a C' fairly often — a small, lifelong correction rather than a real problem.
- In the United States the name is most strongly represented among people now in middle age, so it may read as a mother's or aunt's name to some ears before it reads as a child's.
- It is compact and already short, which means fewer built-in nicknames than a longer name offers. Some families like that; others miss the room to play.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Carla to the vote.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Carla
Feminine · #1082 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carlas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 133,000 people named Carla are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Carla?
- Carla is one of 2 recorded spellings. Karla is the more common one — 340 births in 2025 against 223 for Carla.
- How popular is the name Carla in 2025?
- Carla ranks #1082 among US girl names in 2025, with 223 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Carla?
- About 1 in every 7,207 US girls born in 2025 was named Carla — 223 in all.
- Will my child share the name Carla with classmates?
- Carla will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Carla
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Aira#1082 · Malayah#1082 · Braelyn#1080 · Zaira#1080 · Savanna#1085 · Ira#1085 · Susan#1085 · Arlett#1085
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Carla? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Carla and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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