Charls
Masculine · “a free man”
Charls is the same name as Charles with the silent e taken out, and it is, strictly speaking, the more accurate spelling: nobody says that e. It is also one of the oldest spellings in the American record, from the years when clerks wrote what they heard.
How old is the name Charls?
Charls first appears in US birth records in 1886 — 139 years ago. The typical Charls alive today was born around 1933, making them about 92 years old. About 200 people named Charls are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Charls most popular?
Charls peaked in 1886, reaching #845 nationally. See the whole 1886 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Karl to Charls
The story of Charls
The name is attached to a scientific law most people meet at school and almost nobody can put a face to. Jacques Charles was a French physicist who worked out the relationship between the temperature of a gas and the volume it occupies. He also built things. Within months of the first hot-air ascents he went up in a balloon of his own design filled with hydrogen, which he had to manufacture himself by pouring acid over iron filings — a process that took days and heated the mixture so badly it had to be cooled with water. The first unmanned version of that balloon came down in a village outside Paris, where farmers who had never seen such a thing attacked it with pitchforks. His manned flight went far higher than anything before it, and most of the design features he used were still in balloons a century later.
Meaning
a free man; a man of no rank
From the Germanic word for an ordinary free man, one who was neither noble nor enslaved. The name became imperial through one famous bearer, but the word underneath it describes the opposite of a king. The e that this spelling drops was never pronounced in English.
How the name formed
- Karl
- Carolus
- Charles
- Charls
Related forms: Karl · Carlos · Carlo · Károly · Karol · Karel
Pronouncing Charls
CHARLZ
One syllable. The l and the s run together into a single cluster, and the e in the usual spelling marks nothing at all — which is why this spelling loses nothing by dropping it.
Nicknames for Charls
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
- 1886
- Most boys named
- 193224 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #845reached in 1886
- Change vs 1986
- +66.7%10 in 1987, from 6
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.
Charls in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Karl in German — same name
- Carlos in Spanish — same name
- Carlo in Italian — same name
- Károly in Hungarian — same name
- Karol in Polish — same name
- Karel in Czech — same name
Charlss among us
people named Charls are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Charls sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The name behind it is understood everywhere in Europe and needs no translation.
- Charlie and Chuck are both ready-made and cover very different registers.
- One syllable is quick to say and hard to get wrong.
- Charles is overwhelmingly the standard spelling and this will be corrected constantly.
- The dropped letter is silent, so it must be spelled out aloud every time.
- The name is tied to kings and presidents, which some families want and others do not.
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Charls
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Charlss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 200 people named Charls are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Charls in 2025?
- Charls is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Charls with classmates?
- Charls will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More C names
The most-given names starting with C, all years combined.
Charles#48 · Christopher#68 · Carl#1132 · Christian#96 · Caleb#58 · Cameron#76 · Carlos#150 · Clarence#1499
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Charls? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Charls and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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