Kathrin
Feminine · “Pure”
Kathrin is not an American contraction. It is the standard German spelling of the name, in ordinary use there, arrived at by the same process of wearing down that gave English Kate and Katie, and it reached American records with German-speaking families rather than with anybody's respelling.
How old is the name Kathrin?
Kathrin first appears in US birth records in 1914 — 111 years ago. The typical Kathrin alive today was born around 1976, making them about 49 years old. About 1,100 people named Kathrin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Kathrin most popular?
Kathrin peaked in 1952, reaching #1978 nationally. See the whole 1952 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Aikaterine to Kathrin
The story of Kathrin
German shortened the name by removing the unstressed vowel between the th and the r, which is what German does to long names, and the result is a standard two-syllable form used everywhere from Bavaria to Hamburg. English did the same operation and got Kathryn, with a y instead of an i and the same missing vowel; the two countries arrived independently at nearly the same spelling of nearly the same shortening. Neither the c nor the k in any version of this name is original or correct, since Greek has a letter for the sound that Latin wrote one way and the northern languages another, and both are equally faithful. The name has been spelled at least a dozen ways in English alone and no spelling has ever been able to claim priority.
Meaningscholars disagree
Pure, by tradition
The Greek original is Aikaterine and its meaning is not known; the reading as pure comes from a later respelling that connected it to katharos, and that connection is a guess rather than a derivation. The th in every European spelling of the name is a consequence of the same guess, and the name almost certainly began with a plain t.
How the name formed
- Aikaterine
- Katharina
- Kathrin
Related forms: Kathrin · Kathryn · Katrine · Katerina
Pronouncing Kathrin
KATH-rin
Two syllables with the stress at the front. German says the same thing with a slightly fuller second vowel and a th that is a plain t, since German does not have the English th sound at all.
Nicknames for Kathrin
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
- 1914
- Most girls named
- 199036 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1978reached in 1952
- Change vs 2011
- −50.0%5 in 2021, from 10
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.
Kathrin in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Kathrin in German — same name
- Kathryn in English — same name
- Katrine in Danish — same name
- Katerina in Russian — same name
Kathrins among us
people named Kathrin 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
Kathrin 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
- It is a real, standard, current German spelling rather than an American respelling.
- Kate is available as a short form and is entirely at home in English.
- Two syllables makes it easy to say and to write, which the four-syllable forms are not.
- Kathryn and Katherine are both commoner in America and will be substituted.
- It sits inside an enormous family of near-identical names and will be confused with all of them.
- The meaning usually given for the name rests on a guess made centuries after it was coined.
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Kathrin
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Kathrins are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,100 people named Kathrin are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Kathrin in 2025?
- Kathrin is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Kathrin with classmates?
- Kathrin will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More K names
The most-given names starting with K, all years combined.
Karen#1279 · Kimberly#302 · Kathleen#1150 · Katherine#186 · Kelly#851 · Kathryn#729 · Kayla#364 · Kathy#3249
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Kathrin? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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