Karson
Masculine
Karson is given to both — 21,394 boys and 2,106 girls since 1880. See Karson as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Karson is the K-spelling of Carson, a surname first recorded in Galloway in southwest Scotland and carried by emigrant families through Ulster and on to America, where it eventually stopped being a last name and became a first. Said aloud it is two clean beats, KAR-sun, with nothing in it a stranger has to ask about twice. Its wave here is very recent, and it is now easing back gently from the crest.
How old is the name Karson?
Karson first appears in US birth records in 1966 — 59 years ago. The typical Karson is a kid of about 10 — this name's wave is very recent. About 21,000 people named Karson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karson most popular?
Karson peaked in 2018, reaching #265 nationally. Today it ranks #453, 188 places below that high. See the whole 2018 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Corsan to Karson
The story of Karson
The line begins in Galloway, in Scotland's southwest, where Carson appears in records as a local family name well before it ever went on a baby. From there it followed the ordinary emigration road: Scotland to Ulster, Ulster to colonial America, where Scots-Irish surnames spread inland and eventually turned into first names, as Carson, Mason and Harrison all did. Karson is the same name written with a K, an American respelling that arrived in the twentieth century and grew alongside a whole cohort of K-fronted boys' names. Its Scottish spelling and its American one are the same word, differently dressed.
Meaningnot established
Not established
Nobody has settled what Carson meant before it was a surname. It is documented in medieval Galloway in spellings such as Corsan and Carsan, and etymologists have offered several routes — a local place name, a link with the Norman surname Curzon, or a formation on the northern English surname Carr — without one winning out. What is solid is the geography and the paper trail, not the translation.
How the name formed
- Corsan
- Carson
- Karson
Related forms: Carson · Karsyn · Corsan
Pronouncing Karson
KAR-sun
Stress on the first syllable, exactly as Carson. The K changes nothing about how it sounds, only how it looks.
Nicknames for Karson
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
- 1966
- Most boys named
- 20181,345 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #265reached in 2018
- Change vs 2024
- −15.8%690 in 2025, from 819
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.
Karson in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carson in English — spelling variant
- Karsyn in English — spelling variant
- Corsan in Scots — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, Georgia, Alabama.
Karsons among us
people named Karson are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 2,475 born in 2025 was named Karson
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Karson
- #453
- Karson on the 2025 chart
- #103
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Karson went to 690 boys in 2025, but Carson is the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 3,580, which makes it the 103rd most-given boys’ name of the year — 350 places above the chart.
- Carson2,883
- Karson690
and 1 rarer spelling.
About 1 boy in 477 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 2,475 for Karson 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 Alfredo test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karson's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Alfredo climbed just as high around 1980, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Alfredo's path sketches the road Karson is walking now.
Karson 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 Karson is headed
Karson is easing off slowly — about 16% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Karson beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karson in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Reads correctly on first sight for any English speaker — no pronunciation coaching, ever.
- Already familiar as Carson, so it needs no introduction even where the K spelling is new to someone.
- Rests on a surname with a documented record in Scotland going back to the medieval period.
- Common enough to be recognized, uncommon enough that a Karson is likely to be the only one in his school.
- The default spelling in most people's heads is Carson. Forms, coaches and coffee cups will get the C, and correcting it becomes a small lifelong habit — worth knowing before you commit to the K.
- The K-fronted respellings rose in a short, recent stretch of American naming, so this version carries a fairly precise vintage. Carson itself is far harder to date.
- There is no agreed meaning to hand over when he asks. The story you can give him is a place and a journey — Galloway to Ulster to America — rather than a translation.
- Its use is noticeably heavier in parts of the South than elsewhere, which may or may not matter depending on where he grows up.
Nobody names a baby alone.
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What they receive
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Karson
Masculine · #453 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karsons are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 21,000 people named Karson are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Karson?
- Karson is one of 2 recorded spellings. Carson is the more common one — 2,883 births in 2025 against 690 for Karson.
- How popular is the name Karson in 2025?
- Karson ranks #453 among US boy names in 2025, with 690 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karson?
- About 1 in every 2,475 US boys born in 2025 was named Karson — 690 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karson with classmates?
- Karson will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karson
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Rome#452 · Oakley#454 · Kane#451 · Pedro#455 · Sage#455 · Yusuf#449 · Johnny#457 · Jake#457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karson? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Karson and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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