Karl
Masculine · “Free man”
Karl is overwhelmingly a boys’ name — 100,836 boys against 915 girls since 1880. See Karl as a girl name
Karl is the German and Scandinavian spelling of a name that is, at bottom, the ordinary word for a man — and it has spent a thousand years being carried by emperors without ever quite losing that plainness.
How old is the name Karl?
Karl was already in use when US birth records began in 1880 — it is at least 145 years old. The typical Karl alive today was born around 1960, making them about 65 years old. About 67,000 people named Karl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karl most popular?
Karl peaked in 1960, reaching #135 nationally. Today it ranks #1585, 1,450 places below that high. See the whole 1960 chart.
Karl appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Karl to Karl
The story of Karl
Two things named Karl changed how the world is organized. The first is a system of counting money: Charlemagne fixed a pound of silver, divided it into shillings and pence, and that arrangement — a pound of twenty, each of twelve — ran European accounting for a thousand years and survived in Britain into living memory. The second is a system of counting everything else. Carl Linnaeus decided that every living thing should have exactly two names, a genus and a species, in Latin, chosen by whoever described it first; it replaced a chaos of descriptive phrases, and it is still how every plant and animal on earth is filed. He applied it to himself as well, publishing as Carolus and later, ennobled, as von Linné.
Meaning
Free man
The Germanic word meant a man, and specifically a free one rather than a noble or a bondsman. It became a name, then the name of an emperor, and then a word for a king across half of Europe — while remaining, in German, the plainest name a man can have.
How the name formed
- Karl
- Carolus
- Charles
Related forms: Carlos · Carlo · Charles · Károly · Karol
Pronouncing Karl
KARL
One syllable. German and Scandinavian speakers roll or tap the r; American English does not, and the name survives either way.
Nicknames for Karl
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
- 1880
- Most boys named
- 19602,594 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #135reached in 1960
- Change vs 2022
- −16.4%107 in 2025, from 128
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.
Karl in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carlos in Spanish — same name
- Carlo in Italian — same name
- Charles in French — same name
- Károly in Hungarian — same name
- Karol in Polish — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Karls among us
people named Karl are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 15,963 born in 2025 was named Karl
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Karl
- #1585
- Karl on the 2025 chart
- #647
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Karl went to 107 boys in 2025, but Carl is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 294, which makes it the 647th most-given boys’ name of the year — 938 places above the chart.
- Carl187
- Karl107
About 1 boy in 5,810 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 15,963 for Karl 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 Freddie test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karl's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Freddie climbed just as high around 1938, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Freddie's path sketches the road Karl is walking now.
Karl 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 Karl is headed
Karl should hold steady through 2030 — the curve is flat, and flat curves are the most predictable kind.
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.
Karl beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karl in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is short, strong and understood in every European language without translation.
- The meaning is settled and unusually democratic for a name carried by emperors.
- It needs no nickname and accepts several anyway.
- Carl with a C is the more common American spelling, and his will be written that way.
- The name is closely associated with Germany and Scandinavia, which is either the point or a consideration.
- The spelling is recorded for both sexes, though the boys hold nearly all of it.
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What they receive
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Karl
Masculine · #1585 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karls are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 67,000 people named Karl are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Karl?
- Karl is one of 2 recorded spellings. Carl is the more common one — 187 births in 2025 against 107 for Karl.
- How popular is the name Karl in 2025?
- Karl ranks #1585 among US boy names in 2025, with 107 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karl?
- About 1 in every 15,963 US boys born in 2025 was named Karl — 107 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karl with classmates?
- Karl will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karl
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Zohan#1585 · Delijah#1585 · Sulaiman#1585 · Nisaiah#1585 · Terrence#1585 · Said#1585 · Chester#1585 · Amazi#1585
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karl? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Karl and another name?
See them side by side — full stats, history and a gentle verdict.
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Which one would you pick?
Your gut first, the numbers after — the split shows once you pick.
US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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