Carlo

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in English: A male given name from Italian, equivalent to English Charles

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

/ˈkɑɹɫoʊ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated

Carlo is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Brazil than in any other country, where it is the 6th most common given name.

rarermore common
  • ITItaly≈1 in 377(inferred from the name graph)
  • ECEcuador1 in 49as Carlos
  • SVEl Salvador≈1 in 56as Carlos

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 Carlo 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.

Brazil (measured from records)

1,474,492 named Carlos, 2022

#39 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

6 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
605 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 377 (inferred from the name graph)

Italy, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

CarlosLatin(measured from records)
КарлосCyrillic(measured from records)
კარლოGeorgian(measured from records)
ΚαρολοςGreek(measured from records)
카를로Hangul(measured from records)
കാർലോസMalayalam(measured from records)

Locally spelled Carlos in AR Argentina, BR Brazil, US United States and 4 more and Karl in SE Sweden.

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)

A male given name from Italian, equivalent to English Charles.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.

How Carlo is read(measured from records)

Carlo 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.

  • English30%

    A male given name from Italian, equivalent to English Charles.

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

  • Spanish25%

    No dictionary in our sources glosses Carlo in Spanish.

  • Italian23%

    a male given name, equivalent to English Charles

    as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

    Germ. 'uomo libero'; diffusissimo in Europa, anche da fr. Charles e in composti come Carlomagno.

    as a nameDizionario Dei Nomi e Cognomi Italiani

    Il gcrinaiiici~li<irl noil sigriitica altro che u uoiiiu n (tedesco inoderiio ii kerl n). Uiiu (Ici più ditfusi, tra i noiiii geriiiariici, in tutta

    as a nameNomi e Cognomi: Saggio di ricerche etimologiche e storiche

    forma italiana de Carlus

    as a nameDicionário dos sobrenomes italianos

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)

Carlo 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.

Where Carlo is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil#61,474,492as Carlos1 in 1441.5MCarlos305
US United States#2021,207,972as Charles1 in 2751.2MCarlos605
AR Argentina#4≈720,000 est.≈1 in 633.6KCarlos218
CO Colombia#5≈640,000 est.≈1 in 77639Carlos265
VE Venezuela#10≈460,000 est.≈1 in 63—Carlos174
EC Ecuador#3343,095as Carlos1 in 49343KCarlos162
SE Sweden—198,642as Karl1 in 51199KKarl99
IT Italy#42≈170,000 est.≈1 in 377732Carlo260
SV El Salvador#9≈120,000 est.≈1 in 56—Carlos136

1,474,492 people counted by IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror), 2022. 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: RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national); IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror); IBGE — Nomes (census name API); Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex; the co-datosgov-candidates register; INEC — civil registry names; Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); ISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend). 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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

Carlo is also recorded as 6 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name18 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Philippines, Germany, Australia

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written CarloE, Carló, Çarlo, Cárlo, Carlö

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Carló

  • Indonesian given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, Philippines, Italy, United States

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay, Malagasy

    Also written Carló

  • Danish given name7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Denmark, Peru, United States, Italy

    Languages: Danish, Swedish, Norwegian

    Also written Cårlo, Carlö

  • Lao given name77 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, United States, Spain, Thailand

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Carlos, Karlos, คาร์โล, Cärlös, การ์โลส

  • Turkish given name4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Italy, United States, Türkiye, Philippines

    Languages: Turkish, Azerbaijani

    Also written Carlö

71 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses(measured from records)

Carlo is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In Swedish, Se Karl.

    as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon

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)

1400160018002000Carlo Borromeo, b. 1538Clemens XIII, b. 1693Carlo Goldoni, b. 1707Amedeo Avogadro, b. 1776Humbert I, b. 1844Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, b. 1920Carlo Di Palma, b. 1925Carlo Rubbia, b. 1934Carlo Ancelotti, b. 1959Carlo Cudicini, b. 1973

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)

InformalHi Carlo,

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 111 sources across 51 countries.

Official registers attesting Carlo
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202016K#1,838
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—10K#2,164
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20226.5K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—6.4K#2,283
IT ItalyISTAT — Contanomi newborn per-name series (1999–2024, JSONP backend)2024732#53
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—642#2,316
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)2025276—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)2020258—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020205#1,838
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)2020149—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—77#2,283
EC EcuadorINEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024)202413—

Reference works 9

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 Carlo mean, and where does it come from?
A male given name from Italian, equivalent to English Charles. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
In which country does Carlo have the most bearers?
In Brazil, the national register counted about 1.5 million people named Carlos, more than in any other country we hold.
How common is the name Carlo?
In Brazil, the national register counted 1,474,492 people named Carlos in 2022, about 1 in 144 residents.
How common is Carlo compared with other names?
In Brazil, Carlo is the 6th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.
How do you pronounce Carlo?
A machine transcription gives /ˈkɑɹɫoʊ/ (IPA) for English.
Is Carlo a male or female name?
Carlo 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 Carlo?
In the etymology graph, Carlos, Charles and Carol are forms of the same name in other languages.

What do you want to know about Carlo?

Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.

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Query this name via API
curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/carlo

The 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, “Carlo” — the 6th most common given name in Brazil. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Carlo parses inside a full name →