Carl
given name · Latin script
Meaning: probably from ON/ODa Karli, ODa Karl, or OG Karl; more likely from ME carl, ON karl ‘man’; first attested Godric filius Carie, Carli, Godric Carlesone 1066 DB (K)
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kɑɹl̩/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Carl is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 10th most common given name.
- DKDenmark1 in 605(measured from records)
- SESweden1 in 51as Karl
- IEIreland≈1 in 175as Charles
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). Where a country counts another spelling of the name rather than Carl itself, the figure is that spelling’s, and it is named. One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- United States (measured from records)
- #36 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 678 (measured from records)
- 1 in 605 (inferred from the name graph)
1,207,972 named Charles, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Charles in US United States, GB United Kingdom, NG Nigeria and 3 more and Karl in DE Germany.
Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records, and ○ marks a model's transliteration; click a spelling to open its page.
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
probably from ON/ODa Karli, ODa Karl, or OG Karl; more likely from ME carl, ON karl ‘man’; first attested Godric filius Carie, Carli, Godric Carlesone 1066 DB (K)
Sources 1
- A Dictionary of English Surnames
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Carl counted together with the spellings and other-language forms grouped with it. Where a register counted another spelling, the row names it.
Sorted by bearers: national registers' counts, and Mondonomo's estimates (≈, est.) where no register counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #10 | 1,207,972as Charles | 1 in 275 | 1.2M | Charles | 678 |
| NG Nigeria | #130 | ≈340,000 est. | ≈1 in 635 | — | Charles | 170 |
| GB United Kingdom | #15 | ≈310,000 est. | ≈1 in 214 | 4 | Charles | 381 |
| DE Germany | #28 | ≈290,000 est. | ≈1 in 277 | listed | Karl | 268 |
| EG Egypt | #181 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 499 | — | Charles | 47 |
| SE Sweden | #19 | 198,642as Karl | 1 in 51 | 199K | Carl | 187 |
| IE Ireland | #68 | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 175 | — | Carl | 125 |
| SG Singapore | #5 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 213 | — | Charles | 140 |
| NZ New Zealand | #11 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 193 | — | Charles | 171 |
| DK Denmark | #59 | 9,708 | 1 in 605 | 9.7K | Carl | 141 |
1,207,972 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. Exact figures are national registers' own counts, while figures marked ≈ and est. are Mondonomo’s estimates, counted from our sources and calibrated against those registers; hover one for how far to trust it in that country. A dash means neither exists.
Registers cited: Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts). Figures without a register are Mondonomo estimates; see Methodology.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table (how that works).
Other recorded senses(measured from records)
Carl is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In pi, Probably the name of a celestial musician, or perhaps a musical instrument (VvA.94).
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
In English, Form of Charles, used occasionally in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
A form of Charles which occurs in several North European languages, e.g. German. It is used from time to time in Ireland. Travel, films and literature may all have contributed to its use there. Karl, an alternative spelling, is also found.
as a nameIrish first names
From an old-fashioned German spelling variant of Karl, the German version of Charles. It is now increasingly used in the English-speaking world, and for some reason is particularly popular in Wales.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
In pi, Probably the name of a celestial musician, or, perhaps, of a musical instrument.1 V v A . 94; but see note on p. 372, also p. 211, where Carl is omitted from the list.
as a nameDictionary of Pali Proper Names Vol I (A-Dh)
Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.
Notable people with this name(measured from records)
- Carl Linnaeusb. 1707SESwedish botanist, physician, and zoologist (1707–1778)
- Carl Spittelerb. 1845CHSwiss writer (1845–1924)
- Carl Larssonb. 1853SESwedish painter (1853-1919)
- Karl Rennerb. 1870ATnot in their usual namefirst President of Austria (1870–1950)
- Christian Xb. 1870DKnot in their usual nameKing of Denmark (1912–1947) and Iceland (1918–1944)
- Haakon VII of Norwayb. 1872NOnot in their usual nameKing of Norway from 1905 to 1957 (1872–1957)
- Carl Sandburgb. 1878USAmerican writer and editor (1878–1967)
- Carl Rogersb. 1902USAmerican psychologist (1902–1987)
- Carl David Andersonb. 1905USAmerican physicist
- Oscar Pistoriusb. 1986ZAnot in their usual nameSouth African sprinter and convicted murderer (born 1986)
The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).
How to address them(machine-generated)
A formal English salutation is built on the surname, so it needs a full name — on its own, a first name only supports the informal form.
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 112 sources across 61 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 243K | #229 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 147K | #14 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 24K | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 9.7K | #72 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 668 | #229 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Navne til nyfødte (1985–present) | 2024 | 466 | #2 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 187 | — |
Reference works 7
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- Søndergaard, Georg, Danske efternavne (Lademann 1984/1991)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-10-09 data build.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the name Carl mean, and where does it come from?
- probably from ON/ODa Karli, ODa Karl, or OG Karl; more likely from ME carl, ON karl ‘man’; first attested Godric filius Carie, Carli, Godric Carlesone 1066 DB (K) Recorded by A Dictionary of English Surnames.
- Is Carl a male or female name?
- Carl is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
- What are other forms of the name Carl?
- In the etymology graph, Carlos, Charles and Carol are forms of the same name in other languages; Kalle is a recorded short or pet form.
- In which country does Carl have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.2 million people named Charles, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Carl most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Carl is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 605 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Carl?
- A machine transcription gives /kɑɹl̩/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Carl?
- In Denmark, the national register counted 9,708 people named Carl, about 1 in 605 residents.
- How common is Carl compared with other names?
- In the United States, Carl is the 10th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Carl?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/carlThe payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. It takes a free API key (1,000 requests a day), which returns what this page shows everyone; the full country table, every register citation and the year-by-year series come with a licensed key, as does bulk access.
About this data
measured from records inferred from the name graph machine-generated
These figures come from the data snapshot of and will change as it is rebuilt.
Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.
Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.
Cite this page Mondonomo, “Carl” — the 10th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.