Karri
Feminine · “pure”
Karri is overwhelmingly a girls’ name — 4,493 girls against 6 boys since 1880.
Catherine's meaning was invented and then written into the spelling. The Greek name Aikaterine has no known origin. Early Christian writers connected it with katharos, pure, because they liked the sense, and the th they added to make the connection visible is still sitting in Katharine today.
How old is the name Karri?
Karri first appears in US birth records in 1953 — 72 years ago. The typical Karri alive today was born around 1975, making them about 50 years old. About 4,200 people named Karri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karri most popular?
Karri peaked in 1976, reaching #723 nationally. Today it ranks #10917, 10,194 places below that high. See the whole 1976 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Karri
The story of Karri
Names occasionally acquire meanings by decision rather than by descent, and this is the clearest case in Europe. Aikaterine was an unexplained Greek name; the church associated it with purity; the spelling shifted to show the association; and fifteen hundred years later the meaning is what every name book prints. Kari, meanwhile, is the ordinary Norwegian form and is one of the commonest women's names in Norway, while in Finland the same four letters are a man's name — which is why this spelling has never settled cleanly on one side of the line in American records either. There is also a tree: the karri is a eucalyptus of Western Australia, one of the tallest hardwoods on earth, named from a Noongar word.
Meaningscholars disagree
pure, by a meaning attached later
Karri is a form of Kari, the Norwegian short form of Katarina, which is Catherine. The Greek Aikaterine has no established etymology. The reading pure comes from a deliberate association with katharos made in late antiquity and is now inseparable from the name, but it is a later attachment rather than a source.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Katarina
- Kari
- Karri
Related forms: Kari · Kari · Karin
Pronouncing Karri
KAR-ee
Two syllables, stress on the first, rhyming with sorry in most American mouths. The Norwegian Kari is KAH-ree, with a longer and rounder first vowel.
Nicknames for Karri
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
- 1953
- Most girls named
- 1976202 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #723reached in 1976
- Change vs 2024
- 0.0%8 in 2025, from 8
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.
Karri in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kari in Norwegian — same name
- Kari in Finnish — related form
- Karin in Swedish — related form
Karris among us
people named Karri are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 200,908 born in 2025 was named Karri
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Karri
- #10917
- Karri on the 2025 chart
- #776
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Karri went to 8 girls in 2025, but Kari, Khari and Kaari and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 5 spellings went to 184, which makes it the 776th most-given girls’ name of the year — 10,141 places above the chart.
About 1 girl in 8,735 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 200,908 for Karri 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 Santa test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karri's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Santa climbed just as high around 1915, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Santa's path sketches the road Karri is walking now.
Karri 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
Karri beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karri in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It descends from one of the most used names in European history, with a fully documented later life.
- Two syllables that everyone can say and almost spell.
- It serves either child, which is why the records show both.
- Carrie, Kari, Kerri and Carey are all in use and all sound close; the spelling will be given constantly.
- It leans to girls without settling, so forms will guess and will sometimes guess wrong.
- The meaning usually printed for it was attached to the name rather than inherited by it.
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What they receive
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Karri
Feminine · #10917 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karris are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 4,200 people named Karri are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Karri?
- Karri is one of 5 recorded spellings. Kari is the more common one — 90 births in 2025 against 8 for Karri.
- How popular is the name Karri in 2025?
- Karri ranks #10917 among US girl names in 2025, with 8 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karri?
- About 1 in every 200,908 US girls born in 2025 was named Karri — 8 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karri with classmates?
- Karri will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karri
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Edythe#10917 · Tessie#10917 · Drusilla#10917 · Eugenie#10917 · Ivah#10917 · Claribel#10917 · Adell#10917 · Myrtle#10917
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karri? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Karri and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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