Karry
Masculine · “The dark ones”
Karry is given to both — 648 boys and 1,200 girls since 1880. See Karry as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Written with a c, this name is an English verb. Written with a k it cannot be, and that is the point: the k does no work in the sound at all and a great deal of work on the page, separating a name from a word it would otherwise be identical to.
How old is the name Karry?
Karry first appears in US birth records in 1934 — 91 years ago. The typical Karry alive today was born around 1963, making them about 62 years old. About 500 people named Karry are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karry most popular?
Karry peaked in 1960, reaching #1341 nationally. See the whole 1960 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Ciarraige to Karry
The story of Karry
The Irish county is one of a set named after peoples rather than places. The Ciarraige were a population group whose name joins the word ciar, dark or dusky, to an ending meaning the people of, so the county is the country of the dark ones, and the same element turns up in the personal names Ciaran and Ciara. Naming a district after the group living in it was the normal Irish practice, and a good many counties still carry those names under English spellings that give no hint of them. What the darkness referred to, hair or complexion or something lost, nobody now knows; the word is certain and the reason for it is not.
Meaningscholars disagree
The dark ones
If the name is from Kerry, it is an Irish county named after a people called the Ciarraige, whose own name is built on the word for dark or black. If it is from Carrie, it is a shortening of Caroline and means a free man in the feminine. The spelling here can be reached from either and the record does not distinguish.
How the name formed
- Ciarraige
- Kerry
- Karry
Related forms: Ciarrai
Pronouncing Karry
KAR-ee
Two syllables with the stress at the front. The doubled r keeps the first vowel short, and the k removes any chance of the name being read as the ordinary English verb spelled with a c.
Nicknames for Karry
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
- 1934
- Most boys named
- 196035 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1341reached in 1960
- Change vs 2004
- +20.0%6 in 2019, from 5
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.
Karry in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Ciarrai in Irish — related form
Karrys among us
people named Karry are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Karry sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The k separates the name cleanly from an ordinary English word, which the c spelling does not.
- Short, warm and impossible to mispronounce.
- It works for a child of either sex, which the record confirms.
- The record carries it for boys as well as girls, so it signals nothing on a form.
- Carrie, Kerry, Cari and Kari all exist for closely related sounds and will be confused.
- It reads as a pet form on a certificate and leaves nothing more formal underneath.
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Karry
Masculine
Frequently asked
- How many Karrys are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 500 people named Karry are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Karry in 2025?
- Karry is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 boy names.
- Will my child share the name Karry with classmates?
- Karry will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Kenneth#294 · Kevin#221 · Kyle#508 · Keith#800 · Karl#1585 · Kaleb#295 · Kurt#2258 · Kelly#1867
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karry? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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