Carrie
Feminine · “Free man”
Carrie is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 266,350 girls against 1,190 boys since 1880. See Carrie as a boy name
Two American women called Carrie changed a national argument each, from opposite directions. One took a hatchet to saloon fixtures and paid her fines by selling souvenir hatchets; the other spent thirty years running committees and delivered the vote.
How old is the name Carrie?
Carrie was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Carrie alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 166,000 people named Carrie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Carrie most popular?
Carrie peaked in 1880, reaching #20 nationally. Today it ranks #2719, 2,699 places below that high. See the whole 1880 chart.
Carrie appears on these lists:
Where it comes from
From Carolus to Carrie
The story of Carrie
Carrie Nation stood six feet tall, called herself a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, and destroyed the interiors of saloons in a state where alcohol was already illegal and the law was not enforced. She was arrested some thirty times, funded herself by lecturing and by selling small pewter hatchets, and was disowned by the more respectable temperance organizations, who thought her a liability. Carrie Chapman Catt was the opposite in every way: she ran the national suffrage association twice, designed a state-by-state plan that most of her allies thought too slow, held it together through a war, and got the amendment through. She founded the League of Women Voters a fortnight before it passed.
Meaning
Free man, in the feminine
A pet form of Caroline, which is the French feminine of the Latin form of Charles, from a Germanic word for a free man of no rank. The meaning belongs to the full name; a pet form inherits it and adds familiarity. Nothing in the ending contributes anything else.
How the name formed
- Carolus
- Caroline
- Carrie
Related forms: Karrie
Pronouncing Carrie
KAR-ee
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The doubled r keeps the first vowel short and prevents the name being read as the word car with an ending; it is doing genuine work.
Nicknames for Carrie
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
- 1880
- Most girls named
- 19757,854 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #20reached in 1880
- Change vs 2022
- −7.4%63 in 2025, from 68
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.
Carrie in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Karrie in German — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Ohio.
Carries among us
people named Carrie are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 25,512 born in 2025 was named Carrie
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Carrie
- #2719
- Carrie on the 2025 chart
- #883
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Carrie went to 63 girls in 2025, but Karie and Karrie are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 77, which makes it the 883rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 1,836 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 20,874 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 25,512 for Carrie 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
Fashion outlook
Carrie has held the top-100 across 6 different decades — it has never depended on fashion, and names like that read the same at any age.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Carrie is headed
Carrie is easing off slowly — about 21% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Carrie beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Carrie in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Short, warm and impossible to mispronounce, with nothing a small child will struggle with.
- A long formal name sits behind it if one is ever wanted.
- It has been in continuous American use for a hundred and fifty years.
- One horror novel and its film adaptations own the name for a whole generation of readers.
- The record carries it for boys in small numbers, so it is not quite an absolute signal.
- It is a pet form on a certificate and leaves nothing more formal underneath.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Carrie
Feminine · #2719 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Carries are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 166,000 people named Carrie are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Carrie?
- Carrie is the most-used spelling in US records — 63 of the 77 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Karie and Karrie.
- How popular is the name Carrie in 2025?
- Carrie ranks #2719 among US girl names in 2025, with 63 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Carrie?
- About 1 in every 25,512 US girls born in 2025 was named Carrie — 63 in all.
- Will my child share the name Carrie with classmates?
- Carrie will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Carrie
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ryver#2719 · Kaliana#2719 · Morrigan#2719 · Asher#2719 · Aditi#2719 · Carley#2719 · Betsy#2719 · Emy#2719
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Carrie? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Carrie and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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