Carlos

given name · Latin script

Meaning, in Spanish: a male given name, equivalent to English Charles

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

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

Carlos 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
  • ECEcuador1 in 49(measured from records)
  • SVEl Salvador≈1 in 56
  • ARArgentina≈1 in 63

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 Carlos 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 people, 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 49 (inferred from the name graph)

Ecuador

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)

One other spelling is counted as the same name:

Locally spelled 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 Spanish or Portuguese, equivalent to English Charles.

Sources 1

  • kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)

Attested across 11 languages in the etymology graph.

How Carlos is read(measured from records)

Carlos is one spelling over 3 language communities, and the dictionaries record it differently in 3 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.

  • Spanish61%

    a male given name, equivalent to English Charles

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

    Germánico Karl, de un elemento antiguo ‘hombre, marido, amante’; también asociado a ‘hombre maduro’.

    as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios

  • Portuguese21%

    a male given name, equivalent to English Charles, Carl, or Karl

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

  • English9.4%

    A male given name from Spanish or Portuguese, equivalent to English Charles.

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

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)

Carlos 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 Carlos is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
BR Brazil#61,474,4921 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#3343,0951 in 49343KCarlos162
SE Sweden—198,642as Karl1 in 51199KKarl99
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). 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)

Carlos is also recorded as 5 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • English given name60 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Philippines, Spain

    Languages: English, German, Dutch

    Also written Carlo'S, Carlos', Cärlös, Çarlos, 'Carlos

  • a separate name3 spellings in the group

    Also written Carlós, Cárlos

  • Catalan given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Andorra, Argentina, Spain

    Also written Cárlos

  • Bangla given name11 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Spain, United States, Peru, India

    Languages: Bangla, Hindi, Urdu

    Also written Carlas, কার্লোস, Cárlós, কারলোস, Carloos

  • Lao given name77 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Laos, United States, Spain, Thailand

    Languages: Lao, Thai

    Also written Carlo, Karlos, คาร์โล, Cärlös, การ์โลส

108 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)

Carlos is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • vigorous; from Trancoso/São Tomé/Belém/Brasil/Ciudad Rodrigo/Terceira/Azores/Portugal

    as a nameDicionario Sefaradi De SobrenomesDictionary Of Sephardic Surnames Inclusive Cristaos-Novos, Conversos, Marranos, Italianos,…

  • In Swedish, Carlos är en spansk form av → 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)

500100015002000Charles the Fat, b. 839Ferdinand Magellan, b. 1480Karl VI, b. 1685Karl Adolph Gjellerup, b. 1857Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, b. 1858Karl Renner, b. 1870Manuel II of Portugal, b. 1889Karl Alexander Müller, b. 1927Manuel Valls, b. 1962Charlie Sheen, b. 1965

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)

InformalHola Carlos,Hi Carlos, (English)

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 146 sources across 70 countries.

Official registers attesting Carlos
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—1.5M#28
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes no Brasil API (Census 2010 + 2022)—1.5M#5
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)20221.5M—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—1.5M#8
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex2020472K#95
EC EcuadorINEC — civil registry names2024343K#3
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)202028K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—6.4K#8
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—3.7K#733
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20252.4K—
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)20202K—
EC EcuadorINEC — Visualizador de Nombres y Apellidos, per-token query API (1900–2024)20241.2K—

Reference works 8

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 Carlos come from?
A male given name from Spanish or Portuguese, equivalent to English Charles. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
What are other forms of the name Carlos?
In the etymology graph, Charles, Carol and Carl are forms of the same name in other languages; Carlito, Carlitos and Carlinhos are recorded short or pet forms.
Is Carlos a male or female name?
Carlos 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.
In which country does Carlos 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, where it is most often spelled carlos.
Where is Carlos most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Carlos is densest in Ecuador — about 1 in 49 people — even though Brazil holds more of our records for it.
What does the name Carlos mean?
In Spanish, a male given name, equivalent to English Charles
How do you pronounce Carlos?
A machine transcription gives /kaɾlos/ (IPA) for Spanish.
How common is the name Carlos?
In Brazil, the national register counted 1,474,492 people named Carlos in 2022, about 1 in 144 residents.
How common is Carlos compared with other names?
In Brazil, Carlos is the 6th most common given name of 474,894 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Carlos?

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

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

See how Carlos parses inside a full name →