Coraline
Feminine · Greek roots · “coral”
Coraline belongs to a small family of coral names — Coralie, Coralia, Coral — that flourished in nineteenth-century France, when coral beads were standard in a jewelry box. It reached most English speakers through Neil Gaiman's 2002 novella and the stop-motion film drawn from it. Three syllables, with the stress landing at the front and the sound opening out at the end.
How old is the name Coraline?
Coraline first appears in US birth records in 1970 — 55 years ago. The typical Coraline is a kid of about 7 — this name's wave is very recent. About 6,700 people named Coraline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Coraline most popular?
Coraline peaked in 2015, reaching #579 nationally. Today it ranks #683, 104 places below that high. See the whole 2015 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From korallion (Greek) to Coraline
The story of Coraline
Coralie appears in French use from the nineteenth century, when coral ornaments were fashionable across Europe, and Coraline follows it as a diminutive on the same pattern that gives French Adeline beside Adele. The root runs back through Latin corallium to Greek korallion. In English the spelling was already turning up on American birth records before Neil Gaiman published Coraline in 2002; the novella and the 2009 stop-motion film that followed carried it to a far wider audience, and the American wave of the name is overwhelmingly a wave of children.
Meaningscholars disagree
coral
The main reading takes it as a French diminutive of Coralie, from Latin corallium and Greek korallion, the coral of the Mediterranean. A second account ties it instead to Caroline: Neil Gaiman has said the name came to him as a mistyping of Caroline that he liked too much to correct. Both roads are real, and they arrive at the same spelling.
How the name formed
- korallionGreek
- coralliumLatin
- Coralie
- Coraline
Related forms: Coralie · Coralia · Coralina · Coral · Corallina
Pronouncing Coraline
KOR-uh-line
KOR-uh-line, rhyming with the end of Caroline, is the usual American reading and the one used in the film. KOR-uh-leen also gets used, and French Coraline is closer to ko-ra-LEEN with the stress at the end. Worth deciding which you want, since both will be offered to you.
Nicknames for Coraline
High
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
- 1970
- Most girls named
- 2015527 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #579reached in 2015
- Change vs 2024
- +5.6%414 in 2025, from 392
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.
Coraline in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Coralie in French — related form
- Coralia in Spanish — related form
- Coralina in Portuguese — related form
- Coral in English — related form
- Corallina in Italian — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Ohio.
Coralines among us
people named Coraline are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 3,882 born in 2025 was named Coraline
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Coraline
- #683
- Coraline on the 2025 chart
- #539
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Coraline went to 414 girls in 2025, but Koraline and Coralyne are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 466, which makes it the 539th most-given girls’ name of the year — 144 places above the chart.
- Coraline414
- Koraline47
- Coralyne5
About 1 girl in 3,449 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 3,882 for Coraline 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 Holli test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Coraline's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Holli climbed just as high around 1974, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Holli's path sketches the road Coraline is walking now.
Coraline 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
Where Coraline is headed
Coraline 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.
Coraline beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Coraline in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Cora comes ready-made as a short form and has a long independent record as a name of its own.
- Readable at first sight for English speakers — the pieces Cora and -line are both already familiar.
- Widely recognized through a well-known book and film, so it rarely needs spelling out from scratch.
- Has close relatives across languages: Coralie in French, Coral in English and Spanish, Coralina in Portuguese.
- The Gaiman story is the association most people reach for, and it is a children's horror tale with button-eyed doubles in it. Many families love that; some would rather their daughter's name not arrive attached to a plot.
- Two pronunciations circulate — ending in -line or in -leen — so she will spend some of her life correcting people, whichever one you pick.
- In speech it sits close to Caroline and Coralie, and both will be written down by mistake now and then.
- Nearly everyone carrying it is young, so it reads clearly as a name of the present moment rather than an inherited one — though the French line behind it is much older than the current wave.
Nobody names a baby alone.
Put Coraline to the vote.
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What they receive
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Coraline
Feminine · Greek roots · #683 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Coralines are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 6,700 people named Coraline are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Coraline?
- Coraline is the most-used spelling in US records — 414 of the 466 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Koraline and Coralyne.
- How popular is the name Coraline in 2025?
- Coraline ranks #683 among US girl names in 2025, with 414 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Coraline?
- About 1 in every 3,882 US girls born in 2025 was named Coraline — 414 in all.
- Will my child share the name Coraline with classmates?
- Coraline will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Coraline
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Sasha#683 · Wrenleigh#683 · Ellis#682 · Chana#686 · Dallas#686 · Rosalina#680 · Alondra#680 · Jenna#679
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Coraline? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Coraline and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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