Karalee
Feminine
Kara is a real word in at least three unrelated languages and means something different in each: black in Turkish, dear in Italian, friend in Irish. None of them is the source of this name, and the coincidence is exactly the sort of thing that produces confident wrong answers in name books.
How old is the name Karalee?
Karalee first appears in US birth records in 1941 — 84 years ago. The typical Karalee alive today was born around 1981, making them about 44 years old. About 1,100 people named Karalee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karalee most popular?
Karalee peaked in 1943, reaching #2079 nationally. See the whole 1943 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Karalee
The Turkish kara is black, and it sits at the front of a great many place names across the old Ottoman world, Karadeniz being the Black Sea. The Italian cara means dear and is the ordinary word a letter opens with. The Irish cara means a friend and is the root of the word carer took by a different route. A short, open, easy sequence of sounds will turn up independently in unrelated languages, because there are not very many easy sequences and every language uses them; that is why the same handful of syllables keeps appearing all over the world with different meanings attached. An American family choosing this name in the nineteen-forties was not consulting Turkish. They were putting two pleasant syllables in front of the commonest ending in the country and stopping there, and the result is not diminished by having no story.
Meaningnot established
Not established
The halves were chosen by ear and neither can be assigned. Kara might be from Karen, from Cara, from Carol or from nothing; the ending is one of the commonest second elements in American compound names and carries no sense. What can be stated is that the resemblances to real words in other languages are coincidences and not derivations.
Pronouncing Karalee
KAR-uh-lee
Three syllables with the stress at the front and a secondary one at the back. The middle vowel is reduced to nothing, which is why the name is also written Karalie and Caralee with no change in how it is said.
Nicknames for Karalee
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
- 1941
- Most girls named
- 198031 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2079reached in 1943
- Change vs 2020
- 0.0%5 in 2023, from 5
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.
Karalees among us
people named Karalee 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
Karalee 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
- Both halves are entirely familiar in English, so the name is understood at once.
- Kara and Lee are two short forms with nothing in common and both stand alone.
- The rhythm is easy and every sound is available to any English speaker.
- Caralee, Karalie and Kara Lee all exist, so the written form has to be specified.
- It will be heard as Carolee and Carrie Lee, both of which are close enough to stick.
- There is no meaning to give a child, and the foreign resemblances invite wrong ones.
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Karalee
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Karalees are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Karalee are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Karalee in 2025?
- Karalee is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Karalee with classmates?
- Karalee will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Karen#1279 · Kimberly#302 · Kathleen#1150 · Katherine#186 · Kelly#851 · Kathryn#729 · Kayla#364 · Kathy#3249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karalee? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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