Carmina
Feminine · “Latin carmen”
Latin carmen means a song and also a spell. A carmen was a formula, sung or chanted, and the Twelve Tables, Rome's earliest law code, made it a capital offense to sing a bad one against someone. The word gives English charm, which is the same idea: words with power, said aloud.
How old is the name Carmina?
Carmina first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Carmina alive today was born around 1987, making them about 38 years old. About 1,200 people named Carmina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carmina most popular?
Carmina peaked in 1976, reaching #2439 nationally. Today it ranks #8860, 6,421 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From carmen to Carmina
The story of Carmina
The magical sense is the older and the legal record proves it was taken seriously. The Twelve Tables, compiled around 450 BC, prescribed death for anyone who sang or composed a carmen that brought infamy or harm on another, which puts verbal magic and defamation in the same category. Latin used carmen for oracles, for religious formulas, for legal oaths and for poetry, and the boundary between them was not sharp: a formula had to be said correctly to work, whether it was a spell or a contract. English inherited the magical sense in charm and the literary sense in nothing at all, since our word for a poem comes from Greek. Carmina Burana, the thirteenth-century manuscript of songs found at Benediktbeuern and set by Orff in 1936, uses the plural in its literary sense.
Meaning
Latin carmen, a song or incantation
From Latin carmen, a song, poem, formula or incantation, probably from canere, to sing. The word gives English charm, through Old French charme. Carmina is the Latin plural and is used as a given name in Spain and Italy. The Spanish name Carmen is a separate matter: it comes from the Marian title of Mount Carmel and is not from carmen, song, despite the frequent claim.
How the name formed
- carmen
- Carmina
Related forms: Carmina · Carmina
Pronouncing Carmina
kar-MEE-nah
Three syllables, stress on the second in Spanish. The Latin plural carmina has the stress on the first syllable, KAR-mih-nah, which is how the Orff work's title is said.
Nicknames for Carmina
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
- 1914
- Most girls named
- 197633 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2439reached in 1976
- Change vs 2023
- −26.7%11 in 2025, from 15
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.
Carmina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carmina in Spanish — same name
- Carmina in Italian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California.
Carminas among us
people named Carmina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 146,115 born in 2025 was named Carmina
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 Roselene test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Carmina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Roselene climbed just as high around 1929, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Roselene's path sketches the road Carmina is walking now.
Carmina 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
Carmina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Carmina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The Latin word is settled and its range of meaning is unusually rich.
- Mina works as a short form.
- It is current in Spanish and Italian.
- Carmen and Carmina are constantly confused and have different sources.
- Two stress patterns circulate.
- It is dated to the middle of the twentieth century in American records.
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Carmina
Feminine · #8860 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carminas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,200 people named Carmina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Carmina in 2025?
- Carmina ranks #8860 among US girl names in 2025, with 11 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Carmina?
- About 1 in every 146,115 US girls born in 2025 was named Carmina — 11 in all.
- Will my child share the name Carmina with classmates?
- Carmina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Carmina
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lida#8860 · Lauretta#8860 · Dot#8860 · Bonita#8860 · Benita#8860 · Trixie#8860 · Adna#8860 · Sue#8860
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Carmina? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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