Karim
Masculine · “generous”
Karim is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 6,886 boys against 58 girls since 1880.
Karim comes from an Arabic word meaning generous — the same word that stands in the Qur'an as Al-Karīm, one of the traditional names of God. It has traveled from Arabic into Turkish, Persian, Urdu, Bosnian and French without changing shape, and it lands in English cleanly: two syllables, every letter doing its job, the stress falling on the long second beat.
How old is the name Karim?
Karim first appears in US birth records in 1957 — 68 years ago. The typical Karim alive today was born around 2008, making them about 17 years old. About 6,700 people named Karim are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karim most popular?
Karim peaked in 2023, reaching #706 nationally. Today it ranks #1084, 378 places below that high. See the whole 2023 chart.
Where it comes from
From karīm to Karim
The story of Karim
The root is the Arabic karīm, an adjective for the generous and the noble. It appears in Islamic tradition as Al-Karīm, among the ninety-nine names of God, which is why the compound Abd al-Karim — servant of the Generous — became so widespread; the standalone Karim followed the same paths. With Arabic and Islam the name spread far beyond its origin: Kerim in Turkish and Bosnian, Karim across Iran, Pakistan, India, West and East Africa. It reached the United States and Western Europe largely through twentieth-century migration and conversion, and both the Karim and Kareem spellings settled in alongside each other.
Meaning
generous, noble, kind
From the Arabic adjective karīm, which covers generosity, nobility and openhandedness at once.
How the name formed
- karīm
- Al-Karīm
- Abd al-Karim
- Karim
- Kareem
Related forms: كريم · Kareem · Kerim · Kerim · Karim · Karim
Pronouncing Karim
kah-REEM
Stress on the second syllable, with a long ee — the Arabic vowel is genuinely long. English speakers who read it cold sometimes say KAR-im instead, which is easy to correct once.
Nicknames for Karim
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
- 1957
- Most boys named
- 2022328 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #706reached in 2023
- Change vs 2024
- −35.1%198 in 2025, from 305
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.
Karim in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- كريم in Arabic — transliteration
- Kareem in English — spelling variant
- Kerim in Turkish — same name
- Kerim in Bosnian — same name
- Karim in Persian — same name
- Karim in Urdu — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Karims among us
people named Karim are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 8,627 born in 2025 was named Karim
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Aditya test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karim's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Aditya climbed just as high around 2008, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Aditya's path sketches the road Karim is walking now.
Karim 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 Karim is headed
Karim looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 24% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium 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.
Karim beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karim in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Phonetic in English: nobody has to be taught how to say it once they hear the stress, and the spelling holds up in writing and over the phone.
- Works unchanged in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Turkish, Bosnian and French, so it crosses borders and family languages without translation.
- A meaning that is settled and easy to state — generous, noble — with a long religious and literary record behind it in Arabic.
- Short and complete on its own, needing no nickname, while Kareem gives a familiar alternative spelling many Americans already recognize.
- Two spellings compete in the United States, Karim and Kareem, so there will be a lifetime of gentle corrections in both directions. Choosing one and using it consistently is most of the fix.
- Outside the regions where the name is best established, a child may be the only Karim in a school and will field questions about where the name comes from — some children enjoy that, some tire of it.
- The Al-Karīm connection makes it meaningful for Muslim families and simply a good short name for others; it is worth knowing that religious weight is there, since people who recognize it will hear it.
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What they receive
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Karim
Masculine · #1084 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karims 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 Karim are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Karim in 2025?
- Karim ranks #1084 among US boy names in 2025, with 198 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karim?
- About 1 in every 8,627 US boys born in 2025 was named Karim — 198 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karim with classmates?
- Karim will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karim
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Lyam#1084 · Randy#1084 · Menachem#1084 · Mariano#1084 · Larry#1084 · Wren#1084 · Edmund#1081 · Harley#1081
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karim? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Karim and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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