Kári
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kʰauːrɪ/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kári is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in China than in any other country. In Norway it is the 37th most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Old Norse Kári (“gust of wind”), related to kárr (“curly-haired”), from a Proto-Germanic root related to *kreukaną (“to fold up, wrinkle”).
- FIFinland1 in 135(measured from records)
- NONorway1 in 246
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 462as Claire
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 Kári 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)
- #257 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 593 (measured from records)
- 1 in 135 (inferred from the name graph)
≈1,100,000 named Carrie, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Finland
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Carrie in US United States, CN China, Claire in GB United Kingdom, IE Ireland, Kari in NO Norway, FI Finland and קלייר 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 Old Norse Kári (“gust of wind”), related to kárr (“curly-haired”), from a Proto-Germanic root related to *kreukaną (“to fold up, wrinkle”).
Sources 2
Attested across 24 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kári 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 | — | ≈1,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 1.3K | — | Carrie | 82 |
| US United States | #133 | 163,948as Claire | 1 in 2K | 163K | Carrie | 593 |
| GB United Kingdom | #42 | ≈140,000 est. | ≈1 in 462 | 7 | Claire | 399 |
| FR France | — | ≈120,000 est. | ≈1 in 546 | 160K | קלייר | 19 |
| FI Finland | #57 | 41,301 | 1 in 135 | 57K | Kari | 68 |
| NO Norway | #37 | 22,263 | 1 in 246 | 72K | Kari | 114 |
| IE Ireland | #49 | ≈6,800 est. | ≈1 in 767 | — | Claire | 161 |
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); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891); SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population); DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register); DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup). 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)
Kári 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 Faroese, a male given name, compare Norwegian Kåre
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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)
- Kári Leivssonb. 1950FODanish poet
- Kári P. Højgaardb. 1951FOFaroese politician
- Kári Gíslasonb. 1972ISIcelandic-Australian writer
- Kári á Rógvib. 1973FOFaroese law professor and politician (1973-2015)
- Kári Árnasonb. 1982ISIcelandic association football player
- Kári Kristjánssonb. 1984ISIcelandic handball player
- Kári Gunnarssonb. 1991ISbadminton player
- Kári Arnarssonb. 2002ISIcelandic ice hockey player
- Kari Slaterb. 2012DEGerman composer
- Kári ÞórðarsonISIcelandic 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 13 sources across 5 countries.
Reference works 2
- 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
- What does the name Kári mean, and where does it come from?
- From Old Norse Kári (“gust of wind”), related to kárr (“curly-haired”), from a Proto-Germanic root related to *kreukaną (“to fold up, wrinkle”). Recorded by Wiktionary and Nordic Names.
- How do you pronounce Kári?
- A machine transcription gives /kʰauːrɪ/ (IPA) for Icelandic.
- How common is the name Kári?
- In Finland, the national register counted 41,301 people named Kári, about 1 in 135 residents.
- How common is Kári compared with other names?
- In Norway, Kári is the 37th most common given name of 25,788 given names recorded there.
- Is Kári a male or female name?
- Kári 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 Kári have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 1.1 million people named Carrie in China, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Kári most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kári is densest in Finland — about 1 in 135 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
What do you want to know about Kári?
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/k%C3%A1riThe 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, “Kári” — the 37th most common given name in Norway. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.