Carla
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: Feminine form of Carl, occasionally used in Ireland
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kʰɑɹlə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Carla is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Bolivia it is the 5th most common given name.
- PTPortugal≈1 in 152(inferred from the name graph)
- BOBolivia≈1 in 344
- CLChile≈1 in 564
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 Carla 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.
- China (inferred from the name graph)
- #779 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 440 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 152 (inferred from the name graph)
≈710,000 people, est.
of 15M given names
Highest-authority source
Portugal, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
Feminine form of Carl/Charles, from Germanic karl, 'free man'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
How Carla is read(measured from records)
Carla is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 2 of them. Each row is what a source recorded for that language, beside the share of this name’s records the language holds. No single row is the name’s meaning.
- English42%
Feminine form of Carl, occasionally used in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
A female given name from the Germanic languages borrowed from Italian or German.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Spanish23%
a female given name, masculine equivalent Carlos
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- Portuguese21%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Carla in Portuguese.
The share is ours — how much of this name’s records each language holds. The sense beside it is the source’s, quoted and credited, including where it names a gender. We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Carla 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CN China | — | ≈710,000 est. | ≈1 in 2K | — | Carla | 18 |
| BR Brazil | #85 | 303,790 | 1 in 697 | 327K | Carla | 227 |
| US United States | — | 144,782 | 1 in 2.3K | 145K | Carla | 440 |
| ES Spain | #146 | 87,268 | 1 in 573 | 87K | Carla | 212 |
| IT Italy | #181 | ≈76,000 est. | ≈1 in 821 | 139 | Carla | 178 |
| PT Portugal | #26 | ≈68,000 est. | ≈1 in 152 | listed | Carla | 191 |
| EC Ecuador | — | 47,098as Karla | 1 in 359 | 47K | Carla | 78 |
| BO Bolivia | #5 | ≈34,000 est. | ≈1 in 344 | — | Carla | 75 |
| CL Chile | #165 | ≈32,000 est. | ≈1 in 564 | 75 | Carla | 138 |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 14,251as Karla | 1 in 358 | 14K | — | 79 |
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: IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos); SRCEI — Nombres más comunes (guaguas, 1920–2021); the pt-irn-lista-nomes register; INEC — civil registry names; ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend); TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names. 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)
Carla is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, Feminine form of Carl/Charles, from Germanic karl, 'free man'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Feminine form of Carl. Carlotta ° Italian form of Charlotte, occasionally used in the English-speaking world.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
A feminine form of Carl, occasionally used in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
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)
- Princess Maria Carolina, Duchess of Berryb. 1798ITnot in their usual nameTwo Sicilian Royal (1798-1870)
- Infanta Marie Anne of Portugalb. 1861NLnot in their usual nameGrand Duchess consort and regent of Luxembourg (1861-1942)
- Carla Cassolab. 1947ITItalian actress (1947–2022)
- Carla Brunib. 1967ITItalian and French singer, model and spouse of former president of France
- Carla Guginob. 1971USAmerican actress
- Carolina Klüftb. 1983SEnot in their usual nameSwedish heptathlete and long jumper
- Carla Jurib. 1985CHSwiss actress
- Carolina Kostnerb. 1987ITnot in their usual nameItalian figure skater (born 1987)
- Karol Gb. 1991COnot in their usual nameColombian singer and songwriter
- Carolina Marínb. 1993ESnot in their usual nameSpanish badminton player
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 119 sources across 60 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 327K | #149 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 304K | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 302K | #97 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 145K | #387 |
| ES Spain | INE — Padrón per-token widgets (current living counts, given + apellidos) | — | 87K | #111 |
| ES Spain | INE — Nombres más frecuentes (Padrón Municipal) | — | 82K | #61 |
| EC Ecuador | INEC — civil registry names | 2024 | 23K | #92 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | 2020 | 2.7K | — |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 1.7K | #402 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 1.3K | #97 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 242 | #387 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 223 | — |
Reference works 3
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
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
- Where does the name Carla come from?
- Feminine form of Carl/Charles, from Germanic karl, 'free man'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- What does the name Carla mean?
- In English, Feminine form of Carl, occasionally used in Ireland.
- Is Carla a male or female name?
- Carla is a female 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.
- In which country does Carla have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 707 thousand people named Carla in China, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled carla.
- How do you pronounce Carla?
- A machine transcription gives /kʰɑɹlə/ (IPA) for English.
- What are other forms of the name Carla?
- In the etymology graph, Carolyn, Carolina and Caroline are forms of the same name in other languages.
- How common is the name Carla?
- In Brazil, the national register counted 303,790 people named Carla in 2022, about 1 in 697 residents.
- How common is Carla compared with other names?
- In Bolivia, Carla is the 5th most common given name of 14,891 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Carla?
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/carlaThe 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, “Carla” — the 5th most common given name in Bolivia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.