Carma
Feminine · “Hebrew karmel”
Mount Carmel is a real ridge above Haifa, and it has been holy for three thousand years. The Carmelite order took its name from living there, and the order then named children across the Catholic world, which is how a hillside became a family of given names.
How old is the name Carma?
Carma first appears in US birth records in 1897 — 128 years ago. The typical Carma alive today was born around 1955, making them about 70 years old. About 2,700 people named Carma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carma most popular?
Carma peaked in 1935, reaching #779 nationally. Today it ranks #10107, 9,328 places below that high. See the whole 1935 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From karmel to Carma
The story of Carma
The Carmel ridge runs to the Mediterranean above modern Haifa, and its name in Hebrew means garden land, which describes it accurately: it is green where the country around it is not. It appears in the book of Kings as the site of Elijah's contest with the prophets of Baal. In the twelfth century a group of hermits settled on it and became the Carmelite order, and when they were driven west they carried the mountain's name to Europe, where the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel spread through Spain, Italy and Latin America. The given names followed the devotion: Carmela, Carmelo, Carmelita and Carma are all children named after a mountain most of their families would never see.
Meaning
Hebrew karmel, garden land or vineyard
Carma is a variant of Carmel or Carmela, from Hebrew karmel, meaning a garden, orchard or fertile field, and used as the name of the mountain range in northern Israel. The devotion to Our Lady of Mount Carmel produced the given names Carmel, Carmela, Carmelo and their variants. The American peak is 1935.
How the name formed
- karmel
- Carmel
- Carma
Related forms: Carmela · Carmela · Karmel
Pronouncing Carma
KAR-muh
Two syllables, stress on the first. It is a homophone of the Sanskrit word karma in American speech, which the spelling with a c only partly disguises.
Nicknames for Carma
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
- 1897
- Most girls named
- 193575 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #779reached in 1935
- Change vs 2023
- −35.7%9 in 2025, from 14
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.
Carma in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carmela in Italian — related form
- Carmela in Spanish — related form
- Karmel in Hebrew — same name
Carmas among us
people named Carma are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 178,585 born in 2025 was named Carma
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Carma
- #10107
- Carma on the 2025 chart
- #819
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Carma went to 9 girls in 2025, but Karma, Kharma and Karmah are the same name said out loud. Together the 4 spellings went to 141, which makes it the 819th most-given girls’ name of the year — 9,288 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 11,399 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 178,585 for Carma 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 Afton test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Carma's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Afton climbed just as high around 1917, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Afton's path sketches the road Carma is walking now.
Carma 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
Carma beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Carma in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Two syllables and five letters, easy to say and spell.
- Carmel and Carmela are available as longer forms.
- The place behind it is real and documented across three millennia.
- It sounds exactly like the word karma.
- The 1935 peak dates its American use.
- Carma, Carmen and Carmela will be confused.
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What they receive
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Carma
Feminine · #10107 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carmas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,700 people named Carma are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Carma?
- Carma is one of 4 recorded spellings. Karma is the more common one — 120 births in 2025 against 9 for Carma.
- How popular is the name Carma in 2025?
- Carma ranks #10107 among US girl names in 2025, with 9 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Carma?
- About 1 in every 178,585 US girls born in 2025 was named Carma — 9 in all.
- Will my child share the name Carma with classmates?
- Carma will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Carma
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Berta#10107 · Jettie#10107 · Maye#10107 · Osa#10107 · Fidelia#10107 · Alysa#10107 · Su#10107 · Willie#10107
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Carma? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Carma and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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