Karen
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Form of Katherine, ultimately of Danish origin; now well established in Ireland
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kəɹɛn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Karen is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in the United States than in any other country, where it is the 36th most common given name.
- IEIreland≈1 in 202(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 210
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 231
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 Karen 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.
- United States (measured from records)
- #83 (measured from records)
- 4 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 662 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 202 (inferred from the name graph)
882,576 people, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Ireland, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
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)
Form of Katherine, ultimately of Danish origin; now well established in Ireland.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Karen 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | #36 | 882,576 | 1 in 377 | 881K | Karen | 662 |
| GB United Kingdom | #33 | ≈310,000 est. | ≈1 in 210 | 6 | Karen | 389 |
| CZ Czechia | — | 208,144as Karel | 1 in 51 | 208K | — | 2 |
| EG Egypt | #306 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 694 | — | Karen | 67 |
| PH Philippines | #117 | ≈150,000 est. | ≈1 in 749 | — | Karen | 198 |
| AU Australia | #29 | ≈110,000 est. | ≈1 in 237 | 5 | Karen | 293 |
| IE Ireland | #22 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 202 | — | Karen | 165 |
| NZ New Zealand | #27 | ≈21,000 est. | ≈1 in 231 | 14 | Karen | 177 |
882,576 people counted by Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex, 2020. 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); Australian national given names (aggregated state BDM); MVČR — living population register 2017; DIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present). 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)
Karen is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In French, Danish form of Katherine, from Greek Aikaterinē, origin uncertain.
as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)
Danish form of Katherine, first introduced to the English-speaking world by Scandinavian settlers in America. It has been used in Britain only since the 19508, but has become very popular. Karin Swedish form of }Katherine, found as a less common variant of Karen in America and Britain.
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Czech; from Kara or Kara, derivatives of the personal name Karel (see Charles).
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
In English, A female given name from Ancient Greek.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Danish, forma danesa de Catalina; difundido por escandinavos
as a nameDiccionario etimológico de nombres propios
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)
- Karen Horneyb. 1885DEAmerican-German psychoanalyst
- Karen Blixenb. 1885DKDanish writer
- Karen Uhlenbeckb. 1942USAmerican mathematician (born 1942)
- Karen Carpenterb. 1950USAmerican singer and drummer (1950–1983)
- Karen Allenb. 1951USAmerican actress
- Karen Nybergb. 1969USAmerican astronaut
- Karen Davidb. 1979INCanadian actress, singer and songwriter
- Karen Gillanb. 1987GBScottish actress and filmmaker
- Lucy Haleb. 1989USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress and singer
- Karen Fukuharab. 1992USAmerican actress (born 1992)
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 125 sources across 64 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 881K | #33 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 1.8K | #33 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 240 | #876 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 175 | — |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 120 | #967 |
Reference works 5
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- 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
- What does the name Karen mean, and where does it come from?
- Form of Katherine, ultimately of Danish origin; now well established in Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
- What are other forms of the name Karen?
- In the etymology graph, Catherine, Kathy and Tina are forms of the same name in other languages.
- Is Karen a male or female name?
- Karen 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 Karen have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 883 thousand people named Karen, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled karen.
- How do you pronounce Karen?
- A machine transcription gives /kəɹɛn/ (IPA) for English.
- How common is the name Karen?
- In the United States, the national register counted 882,576 people named Karen in 2020, about 1 in 377 residents.
- How common is Karen compared with other names?
- In the United States, Karen is the 36th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Karen?
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/karenThe 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, “Karen” — the 36th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.