Caroline
Feminine · “Free man”
Caroline is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 250,410 girls against 309 boys since 1880.
Caroline is the French feminine of Carolus, the Latin form of Charles, and it arrived in English with a Hanoverian queen — Caroline of Ansbach, consort in the 1720s and 30s. Three soft syllables that end on a long, open sound, it has been sung in stadiums since Neil Diamond recorded "Sweet Caroline" in 1969, and written on scientific papers since Caroline Herschel was cataloguing comets in the 1780s.
How old is the name Caroline?
Caroline was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Caroline alive today was born around 1992, making them about 33 years old. About 197,000 people named Caroline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Caroline most popular?
Caroline peaked in 2017, reaching #55 nationally. Today it ranks #96, 41 places below that high. See the whole 2017 chart.
Where it comes from
From Karl to Caroline
The story of Caroline
The line begins with Germanic Karl, Latinized as Carolus and made famous across Europe by Charlemagne. Italian speakers formed the feminine Carolina, and French and German speakers reshaped it as Caroline and Karoline. It reached English in the eighteenth century with the German-born queens of the House of Hanover, first Caroline of Ansbach and later Caroline of Brunswick, and settled in as an English name rather than a foreign import. The related Carolina had already crossed the Atlantic in place names honoring King Charles, which is why the name has long felt at home in the American South.
Meaning
Free man, from the Germanic name Karl
Karl, the root behind Charles and Carolus, is the Germanic word for a free man or simply a man. Caroline carries that meaning at one remove, as the feminine of the Latinized Carolus.
Cultural footprint
Caroline Herschel (b. 1750) — First woman paid to do astronomy — discovered eight comets
Caroline Kennedy (b. 1957) — JFK's daughter, author and US ambassador
Caroline Wozniacki (b. 1990) — World No. 1 tennis champion
Source: Wikidata — the one source on this page that is not an official agency.
How the name formed
- Karl
- Carolus
- Carolina
- Caroline
Related forms: Carolina · Karoline · Caroline · Karolina · Carolien · Karolína
Pronouncing Caroline
KAR-uh-line
American English usually ends the name on a long i, as in line. British and Australian speakers often say KAR-uh-lin, with the last syllable unstressed and shortened. Both are correct and both are widely understood.
Nicknames for Caroline
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
- 1961 — Little Caroline Kennedy in the White House
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 20014,864 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #55reached in 2017
- Change vs 2022
- −12.7%2,646 in 2025, from 3,030
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.
Caroline in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carolina in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese — related form
- Karoline in German, Danish, Norwegian — spelling variant
- Caroline in French — same name
- Karolina in Polish, Swedish — spelling variant
- Carolien in Dutch — related form
- Karolína in Czech — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, North Carolina, Georgia.
Carolines among us
people named Caroline are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 607 born in 2025 was named Caroline
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 Tracey test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Caroline's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tracey climbed just as high around 1970, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tracey's path sketches the road Caroline is walking now.
Caroline is coming down from a big peak (#55 in 2017). This is the stretch of the cycle where a name starts to sound like the decade it ruled.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Caroline is headed
Caroline should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
High 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.
Caroline beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Caroline in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A spelling English speakers already know: it needs no repeating, no clarifying, no explaining over the phone.
- Several ready-made short forms, from Carrie to Callie to Caro, so both a formal and an informal version arrive with the name.
- Continuous use in English since the eighteenth century, with the same spelling throughout — it has never had to be revived from scratch.
- Recognizable across French, German, Scandinavian, Polish and Italian with only small adjustments in spelling.
- Two accepted endings, -line and -lin, mean she may hear her own name pronounced two ways, especially outside the US. Neither is wrong, but she will do some correcting.
- Carolina, Caroline, Karoline and Carolyn are all in circulation, so expect an occasional letter or form to come back with the wrong one.
- With this many short forms available, other people will pick one before she does — teachers, teammates, relatives — and it may not be the one you had in mind.
- It leans noticeably Southern in the US, which reads as heritage in Texas or the Carolinas and as simply familiar elsewhere.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
Someone added a name to your list
Caroline
Feminine · #96 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carolines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 197,000 people named Caroline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Caroline in 2025?
- Caroline ranks #96 among US girl names in 2025, with 2,646 babies given the name.
- How common is the name Caroline?
- About 1 in every 607 US girls born in 2025 was named Caroline — 2,646 in all.
- Will my child share the name Caroline with classmates?
- Caroline will almost certainly be the only one in school.
- What explains the spikes and dips on Caroline's chart?
- Caroline climbed after 1961 — Little Caroline Kennedy in the White House.
Ranked beside Caroline
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Jade#95 · Quinn#97 · Amara#98 · Sienna#94 · Kinsley#93 · Georgia#99 · Juniper#100 · Lydia#92
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Caroline? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Caroline and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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