Karsten
Masculine · “follower of Christ”
Karsten is given to both — 3,252 boys and 172 girls since 1880. See other names given to both
Karsten is the north German and Danish form of Christian, and it has traveled so far from the Greek that the connection is invisible.
How old is the name Karsten?
Karsten first appears in US birth records in 1950 — 75 years ago. The typical Karsten alive today was born around 2005, making them about 20 years old. About 3,200 people named Karsten are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Karsten most popular?
Karsten peaked in 2001, reaching #1242 nationally. Today it ranks #4139, 2,897 places below that high. See the whole 2001 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From christos to Karsten
The story of Karsten
Low German and Danish wore Christian down through Kersten to Karsten, losing the ch entirely, which is why the two names look unrelated. It has been well used across Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark and Norway. It appears in American records with German and Scandinavian families and, more recently, with the general taste for Nordic names.
Meaning
follower of Christ
From Greek christos, anointed, translating the Hebrew messiah; Christianus gave German Christian, which Low German and Danish reduced to Karsten and Carsten by way of Kersten.
How the name formed
- christos
- Christian
- Kersten
- Karsten
Related forms: Carsten · Karsten · Christian
Pronouncing Karsten
KAR-sten
Two syllables, first stressed. German and Danish give the same shape.
Nicknames for Karsten
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
- 1950
- Most boys named
- 2010135 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1242reached in 2001
- Change vs 2024
- −10.7%25 in 2025, from 28
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.
Karsten in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Carsten in German — spelling variant
- Karsten in Danish — same name
- Christian in English — related form
Strongest US states over the last decade: Arizona, Oklahoma, Minnesota.
Karstens among us
people named Karsten are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 68,323 born in 2025 was named Karsten
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Karsten
- #4139
- Karsten on the 2025 chart
- #879
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Karsten went to 25 boys in 2025, but Carsten is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 49, which makes it the 879th most-given boys’ name of the year — 3,260 places above the chart.
- Karsten25
- Carsten24
About 1 boy in 34,859 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 68,323 for Karsten 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 Sammuel test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Karsten's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Sammuel climbed just as high around 1954, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Sammuel's path sketches the road Karsten is walking now.
Karsten 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 Karsten is headed
Karsten is easing off slowly — about 20% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Karsten beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Karsten in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- A settled meaning inherited from one of the central words of European history.
- Sten and Kai are both complete Scandinavian names in their own right.
- Read correctly on sight by most English speakers.
- The connection to Christian is completely invisible and needs explaining.
- Karsten and Carsten are both in use and mark Danish and German.
- It is close to Karston and Carson in an American ear.
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Karsten
Masculine · #4139 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Karstens are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 3,200 people named Karsten are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Karsten?
- Karsten is the most-used spelling in US records — 25 of the 49 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Carsten.
- How popular is the name Karsten in 2025?
- Karsten ranks #4139 among US boy names in 2025, with 25 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Karsten?
- About 1 in every 68,323 US boys born in 2025 was named Karsten — 25 in all.
- Will my child share the name Karsten with classmates?
- Karsten will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Karsten
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Mose#4139 · Lucious#4139 · Nikita#4139 · Hasani#4139 · Jomar#4139 · Fionn#4139 · Josey#4139 · Earnest#4139
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Karsten? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Karsten and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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