Karen
Masculine · “pure”
Karen is given to girls far more often — 987,989 girls against 2,785 boys since 1880. See Karen as a girl name
There is a people in Burma called the Karen, several million of them, with their own languages and a long history of conflict with the state. The name has nothing whatever to do with the Danish one, and the coincidence is worth knowing because it is the sort of thing a search engine will not distinguish.
How old is the name Karen?
Karen first appears in US birth records in 1935 — 90 years ago. The typical Karen alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 2,200 people named Karen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karen most popular?
Karen peaked in 1964, reaching #788 nationally. See the whole 1964 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Katherine to Karen
The story of Karen
The American career of this name is one of the steepest on record in both directions. It arrived from Denmark in the nineteenth century in small numbers, climbed through the nineteen-forties and fifties to the very top of the lists, held there for a decade, and then fell away as fast as it had risen — a rise and fall inside a single lifetime, which most names of that size do not manage. Names that peak that sharply tend to date their bearers precisely, and this one does: an American Karen is almost certainly of one particular generation, which is a large part of what happened to the name afterwards.
Meaningscholars disagree
pure
The Danish name descends from Katherine, whose traditional reading was attached long after the name was in use. The Burmese ethnonym is a separate word in a separate language family and shares nothing with it.
How the name formed
- Katherine
- Karen
Related forms: Karen · Karin · Karin
Pronouncing Karen
KAR-un
Two syllables with the weight at the front. Danish says KAH-ren with a fuller second vowel, and Americans use KAIR-un and KAR-un about equally.
Nicknames for Karen
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
- 1935
- Most boys named
- 196383 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #788reached in 1964
- Change vs 2019
- −16.7%5 in 2023, 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.
Karen in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Karen in Danish — same name
- Karin in Swedish — related form
- Karin in Norwegian — related form
Karens among us
people named Karen 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
Karen 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
- Everyone can spell it and say it on first hearing.
- It is a standing name across Scandinavia rather than an American construction.
- Five letters, two syllables, and nothing to explain.
- The name has acquired a strong and unkind slang sense in the last decade, and it is not going away quickly.
- It is one of the most generation-marked names in the language.
- The first vowel is genuinely unsettled between KAR and KAIR.
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What they receive
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Karen
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Karens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 2,200 people named Karen are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Karen in 2025?
- Karen is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Karen with classmates?
- Karen will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Kenneth#294 · Kevin#221 · Kyle#508 · Keith#800 · Karl#1585 · Kaleb#295 · Kurt#2258 · Kelly#1867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karen? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Karen and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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