Karol
Feminine · “free man”
Karol is given to both — 9,694 girls and 1,437 boys since 1880. See Karol as a boy nameSee other names given to both
Karol is a man's name in Poland and a woman's name in America, and the two uses are unrelated. Polish took the Latin form of Charles and spelled it its own way, producing one of the most ordinary men's names in the country; American families arrived at the same letters by respelling Carol with a k, at a point when Carol had become firmly feminine here.
How old is the name Karol?
Karol first appears in US birth records in 1918 — 107 years ago. The typical Karol alive today was born around 1959, making them about 66 years old. About 7,900 people named Karol are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karol most popular?
Karol peaked in 1944, reaching #492 nationally. Today it ranks #3389, 2,897 places below that high. See the whole 1944 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From A Germanic word for a free man, behind Charles to Karol
The story of Karol
The most widely known Polish bearer was a philosophy lecturer, an amateur playwright and a keen skier before he was anything else, and he kept the skiing up for years after it became administratively inconvenient. He was elected in nineteen seventy-eight, the first non-Italian in four and a half centuries, and took a double name in memory of his predecessor. What is worth noticing for a name page is the effect on the register: the name did not spread in America afterwards, because American families already had the same letters doing a completely different job, and a men's name arriving on top of an established women's name has nowhere to go. The two uses have coexisted without either displacing the other for eighty years.
Meaning
free man
The Germanic word behind Charles meant a man of the free but unlanded class, and the reading is settled. The Polish form descends directly from the Latin; the American one descends from an English feminine of the same name. So both routes reach the same meaning, arriving from opposite ends of the family and with opposite assumptions about who the name is for.
How the name formed
- A Germanic word for a free man, behind Charles
- Karol as the standard Polish form
- Carol becoming feminine in English
- Karol arriving in America as a respelling of the feminine
Related forms: Karol · Karol · Carol
Pronouncing Karol
KAR-ul
Two syllables, stress on the first, in American use. Polish says it with a fuller second vowel and a different l, which is a distinct consonant in that language, so the same spelling produces noticeably different names in the two countries.
Nicknames for Karol
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
- 1918
- Most girls named
- 1959253 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #492reached in 1944
- Change vs 2023
- −26.2%45 in 2025, from 61
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.
Karol in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Karol in Polish — same name
- Karol in Slovak — same name
- Carol in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Karols among us
people named Karol are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 35,717 born in 2025 was named Karol
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Karol
- #3389
- Karol on the 2025 chart
- #833
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Karol went to 45 girls in 2025, but Carol is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 127, which makes it the 833rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 2,556 places above the chart.
- Carol82
- Karol45
About 1 girl in 12,656 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 35,717 for Karol 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 Margarette test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karol's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Margarette climbed just as high around 1921, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Margarette's path sketches the road Karol is walking now.
Karol 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 Karol is headed
Karol 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.
Karol beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karol in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The sound is completely familiar in America and needs no explaining.
- It is a genuine national name in central Europe rather than only a respelling.
- It works on the register for either child, which the record confirms.
- In Poland and Slovakia it is unambiguously a man's name.
- Carol is the standard American spelling and this one will be converted into it.
- It is closely tied to a mid-century American generation on the women's side.
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What they receive
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Karol
Feminine · #3389 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karols are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 7,900 people named Karol are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Karol?
- Karol is one of 2 recorded spellings. Carol is the more common one — 82 births in 2025 against 45 for Karol.
- How popular is the name Karol in 2025?
- Karol ranks #3389 among US girl names in 2025, with 45 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karol?
- About 1 in every 35,717 US girls born in 2025 was named Karol — 45 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karol with classmates?
- Karol will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karol
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Katheryn#3389 · Posey#3389 · Ronni#3389 · Gittel#3389 · Betsabe#3389 · Germany#3389 · Jaslene#3389 · Lovina#3389
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karol? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Karol and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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