Karlos
Masculine · “free man”
Karlos is the Basque spelling of Carlos, and behind both stands one of the oldest and plainest of Germanic words: karl, a free man, a man of the common sort. It is the name of emperors and of half of Europe's kings, worn in a spelling that belongs to the western Pyrenees.
How old is the name Karlos?
Karlos first appears in US birth records in 1942 — 83 years ago. The typical Karlos alive today was born around 2000, making them about 25 years old. About 1,900 people named Karlos are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karlos most popular?
Karlos peaked in 1974, reaching #1269 nationally. Today it ranks #4707, 3,438 places below that high. See the whole 1974 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From karl to Karlos
The story of Karlos
The name became imperial with Charlemagne, whose Latin title Carolus Magnus turned an ordinary Frankish word into the model for a Christian king; the Slavic languages went further and made his name their word for king altogether. Spanish took it as Carlos and carried it through the Habsburg and Bourbon monarchies to the Americas. Basque, written with its own conventions, spells the same name Karlos, and the k has since been picked up by Spanish-speaking families elsewhere who want the older sound with a sharper look.
Meaning
free man
From Germanic karl, a man, and specifically a man who is neither noble nor bound, the ordinary free farmer. The same word survives in English churl and in Old Norse karl.
How the name formed
- karl
- Carolus
- Carlos
- Karlos
Related forms: Carlos · Charles · Karl · Carlo · Karol · Károly
Pronouncing Karlos
KAR-lohs
Stress on the first syllable in Basque and Spanish alike. The k changes nothing about the sound.
Nicknames for Karlos
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
- 1942
- Most boys named
- 200948 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1269reached in 1974
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%21 in 2025, from 21
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.
Karlos in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carlos in Spanish — spelling variant
- Charles in English — same name
- Karl in German — related form
- Carlo in Italian — same name
- Karol in Polish — same name
- Károly in Hungarian — same name
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas.
Karloss among us
people named Karlos are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 81,337 born in 2025 was named Karlos
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Karlos
- #4707
- Karlos on the 2025 chart
- #157
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Karlos went to 21 boys in 2025, but Carlos is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 2,439, which makes it the 157th most-given boys’ name of the year — 4,550 places above the chart.
- Carlos2,418
- Karlos21
About 1 boy in 700 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 81,337 for Karlos 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 Primo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karlos's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Primo climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Primo's path sketches the road Karlos is walking now.
Karlos 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
Karlos beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karlos in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Understood immediately in Spanish, Basque and English without translation.
- The Spanish diminutive Carlitos comes ready-made.
- It belongs to one of the longest documented name lines in Europe, with relatives in a dozen languages.
- Carlos is the standard Spanish spelling; the k marks the name as deliberate and will be queried.
- American forms and teachers will default to Carlos, so the correction becomes routine.
- The name is heavily used across the Spanish-speaking world, so a child may share it with a classmate under a spelling that is not theirs.
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What they receive
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Karlos
Masculine · #4707 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karloss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,900 people named Karlos are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Karlos?
- Karlos is one of 2 recorded spellings. Carlos is the more common one — 2,418 births in 2025 against 21 for Karlos.
- How popular is the name Karlos in 2025?
- Karlos ranks #4707 among US boy names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karlos?
- About 1 in every 81,337 US boys born in 2025 was named Karlos — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karlos with classmates?
- Karlos will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karlos
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Ole#4707 · Shelton#4707 · Constantino#4707 · Adel#4707 · Cord#4707 · Zalman#4707 · Montez#4707 · Homer#4707
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karlos? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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