Karon
Masculine
Karon is given to both — 3,198 boys and 6,208 girls since 1880. See Karon as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Karon is a women's name that crossed over. Karen is Danish, a worn-down Katherine, and it went almost entirely to daughters in twentieth-century America; changing the final vowel to an o moved it, and this spelling now goes mostly to boys. That is an unusual direction of travel — names generally move the other way.
How old is the name Karon?
Karon first appears in US birth records in 1935 — 90 years ago. The typical Karon alive today was born around 2003, making them about 22 years old. About 3,100 people named Karon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karon most popular?
Karon peaked in 1996, reaching #1174 nationally. Today it ranks #4707, 3,533 places below that high. See the whole 1996 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Katherine to Karon
The story of Karon
Names almost always travel from boys to girls and almost never back, so a case running the other way is worth noticing. What appears to have happened here is that the -on ending did the work: English reads a final -on as masculine in a way it does not read a final -en, on the model of Damon, Jaron and Marlon. So one vowel moved a Danish women's name across the line, and the spelling now carries a sex the name it came from does not. The record shows it concentrated in particular regions, which is how a local convention usually looks.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Karen is a Danish contraction of Katherine, and Katherine's own origin has never been established — the pure reading was applied by later Christian writers and is not an etymology. So the trail ends in a question. The o in this spelling is an American substitution and carries nothing. The Greek Charon, the ferryman of the dead, is a different word with a different opening consonant, and the resemblance is a coincidence rather than a source.
How the name formed
- Katherine
- Karen
- Karon
Related forms: Karen
Pronouncing Karon
KAIR-un
KAIR-un, two syllables, stress at the front. Karen and Karon are said identically in most American accents, since the final vowel is reduced either way — so the sex signal the o carries is entirely visual.
Nicknames for Karon
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
- 2006116 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1174reached in 1996
- Change vs 2024
- −34.4%21 in 2025, from 32
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.
Karon in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Karen in Danish — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Maryland, Pennsylvania, Michigan.
Karons among us
people named Karon are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 81,337 born in 2025 was named Karon
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Karon
- #4707
- Karon on the 2025 chart
- #902
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Karon went to 21 boys in 2025, but Caron is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 26, which makes it the 902nd most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,805 places above the chart.
- Karon21
- Caron5
About 1 boy in 65,695 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 81,337 for Karon 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 Astor test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karon's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Astor climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Astor's path sketches the road Karon is walking now.
Karon 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
Karon beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karon in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Ron is available as a short form and is a complete name of its own.
- The -on ending reads clearly as a men's name, which is what it was chosen for.
- Two syllables, easy in any accent, and comfortable against most surnames.
- It is said identically to Karen, so on the telephone the name gives no signal at all.
- Karen is very much better known and the spelling will be corrected toward it constantly.
- It shares its sound with a name that has acquired a difficult general meaning in recent American usage.
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Karon
Masculine · #4707 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,100 people named Karon are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Karon?
- Karon is the most-used spelling in US records — 21 of the 26 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Caron.
- How popular is the name Karon in 2025?
- Karon ranks #4707 among US boy names in 2025, with 21 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karon?
- About 1 in every 81,337 US boys born in 2025 was named Karon — 21 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karon with classmates?
- Karon will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karon
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 Karon? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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