Catherine
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: In legend, Trojan princess with the gift of prophecy; also used as an independent name
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kæθəɹɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Catherine is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country, where it is the 16th most common given name.
- CNChina≈1 in 668(inferred from the name graph)
- BYBelarus≈1 in 41as Екатерина
- CZCzechia1 in 45as Kateřina
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 Catherine 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.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- #18 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 624 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 264 (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,600,000 named Екатерина, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
France, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
7 other spellings are counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Екатерина in RU Russia, BY Belarus, CN China, Ekaterina in CZ Czechia, MD Moldova, Катерина in UA Ukraine and Ekaterine in FR France.
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)
From Greek Aikaterinē; meaning uncertain, later associated with Greek katharos 'pure'.
Sources 1
- Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Attested across 20 languages in the etymology graph.
How Catherine is read(measured from records)
Catherine is one spelling over 2 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.
- English69%
In legend, Trojan princess with the gift of prophecy; also used as an independent name
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
Pure; from Greek katharos. Also used as an independent name.
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
A female given name from Ancient Greek.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French15%
From Greek Aikaterinē; meaning uncertain, later associated with Greek katharos 'pure'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
From Greek Aikaterinē; etymology uncertain, often linked to 'pure'.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
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.
Often considered alongside
Names that people choosing a name often weigh against Catherine, most often first. They share a style rather than an origin.
From the names suggested together in public name-advice forums, in English. A list of what people consider, not a measure of how common any name is.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Catherine 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #16 | ≈2,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 54 | #13 | Екатерина | 287 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 668 | — | Екатерина | 76 |
| UA Ukraine | #25 | ≈550,000 est. | ≈1 in 79 | listed | Катерина | 160 |
| US United States | #29 | 470,588as Katherine | 1 in 707 | 470K | Catherine | 624 |
| FR France | — | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 264 | 395K | Ekaterine | 80 |
| CZ Czechia | #503 | 236,254as Kateřina | 1 in 45 | 236K | Ekaterina | 62 |
| BY Belarus | #14 | ≈230,000 est. | ≈1 in 41 | 16 | Екатерина | 70 |
| MD Moldova | #444 | 43,869as Ecaterina | 1 in 77 | 44K | Ekaterina | 31 |
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; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); MVČR — living population register 2017; Universal Dependencies Belarusian-HSE Corpus — Person Names (UD_Belarusian-HSE); e-services.md — living population register. 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)
Catherine 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.
2 Variant spelling of Katherine. This form of the name is also used in France. Variant: Catharine (English only). Short form: Cath. Pet form: Cathy.
as a nameA concise dictionary of 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)
- Catherine of Valoisb. 1401FRQueen consort of England
- Catherine Howardb. 1523GBfifth wife of Henry VIII of England
- Catherine II of Russiab. 1729RUeighth Emperor of Russia, called the Great, r. 1762–1796 (lived 1729-1796)
- Pat Nixonb. 1912USnot in their usual nameFirst Lady of the United States from 1969 to 1974
- Niki de Saint Phalleb. 1930FRnot in their usual nameplastician, painter and sculptor (1930–2002)
- Michèle Laroqueb. 1960FRnot in their usual nameFrench actress
- Catherine Zeta-Jonesb. 1969GBBritish actress (born 1969)
- Katherine Heiglb. 1978USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1978)
- Catherine, Princess of Walesb. 1982GBmember of the British Royal Family and princess of Wales since 2022
- Kate Bosworthb. 1983USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
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 131 sources across 70 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 410K | #113 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2024 | 395K | #1,035 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 972 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 345 | #113 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 136 | #1,150 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 68 | #1,211 |
| MD Moldova | e-services.md — living population register | — | 42 | #1,448 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1948 | 30 | #463 |
Reference works 6
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)
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 are other forms of the name Catherine?
- In the etymology graph, Karen, Kathleen and Katherine are forms of the same name in other languages; Cathy is a recorded short or pet form.
- Where does the name Catherine come from?
- From Greek Aikaterinē; meaning uncertain, later associated with Greek katharos 'pure'. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
- Is Catherine a male or female name?
- Catherine 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.
- How do you pronounce Catherine?
- A machine transcription gives /kæθəɹɪn/ (IPA) for English.
- What does the name Catherine mean?
- In English, In legend, Trojan princess with the gift of prophecy; also used as an independent name
- How common is the name Catherine?
- In the United States, the national register counted 470,588 people named Katherine in 2020, about 1 in 707 residents.
- How common is Catherine compared with other names?
- In Russia, Catherine is the 16th most common given name of 472,143 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Catherine have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.6 million people named Екатерина in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
What do you want to know about Catherine?
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/catherineThe 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, “Catherine” — the 16th most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.