Carol
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Carol 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 50th most common given name. Recorded meaning: From Irish Gaelic Ó Cearbhaill or Mac Cearbhaill, ‘descendant/son of Cearbhal’, perhaps from cearbh ‘hack’, hence possibly ‘butcher’ or ‘ferocious warrior’.
- IEIreland≈1 in 296(inferred from the name graph)
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 323
- NZNew Zealand≈1 in 352
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 Carol 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)
- #121 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 632 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 296 (inferred from the name graph)
614,466 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)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
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 Irish Gaelic Ó Cearbhaill or Mac Cearbhaill, ‘descendant/son of Cearbhal’, perhaps from cearbh ‘hack’, hence possibly ‘butcher’ or ‘ferocious warrior’.
Sources 1
- Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]
Attested across 15 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Carol 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 | #50 | 614,466 | 1 in 541 | 612K | Carol | 632 |
| GB United Kingdom | #47 | ≈200,000 est. | ≈1 in 323 | 4 | Carol | 323 |
| SE Sweden | — | 198,642as Karl | 1 in 51 | 199K | Carol | 71 |
| PL Poland | #263 | 165,862as Karol | 1 in 231 | 166K | Carol | 45 |
| FR France | — | ≈100,000 est. | ≈1 in 673 | 106K | — | 13 |
| IE Ireland | #31 | ≈17,000 est. | ≈1 in 296 | listed | Carol | 136 |
| NZ New Zealand | #49 | ≈14,000 est. | ≈1 in 352 | 14 | Carol | 154 |
614,466 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); Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population); dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20); dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names); INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); 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)
Carol 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 English, Feminine form of Charles; increasingly popular in Ireland.
as a nameIrish first names
In English, A round dance accompanied by singing.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
English: Anglicized form of Carolus (see CHARLES ), or of its feminine derivative Carola . It has never been common as a male name, and has become even less so since its growth in popularity as a female name. This seems to be of relatively recent origin (not being found much before the end of the 19th century) and may have originated as a short form of CAROLINE .
as a word
In Romanian, a male given name from Latin, equivalent to English Charles
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In vec, woodworm
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)
- Carol I of Romaniab. 1839DEking of Romania from 1881 to 1914
- Carol II of Romaniab. 1893ROking of Romania from 1930 to 1940
- Carol Burnettb. 1933USAmerican actress, comedian and singer (born 1933)
- Diahann Carrollb. 1935USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress, singer, model and activist (1935–2019)
- Joyce Carol Oatesb. 1938USAmerican author (born 1938)
- Carole Kingb. 1942USnot in their usual nameAmerican singer-songwriter and musician (born 1942)
- Carol Clevelandb. 1942GBAmerican-British actress
- Carol Kaneb. 1952USAmerican actress (born 1952)
- Annette Beningb. 1958USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1958)
- Kalomira Sarantisb. 1985USnot in their usual nameGreek-American singer
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).
Evidence(measured from records)
Attested in 110 sources across 56 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 612K | #68 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1995 | 2.9K | #1,554 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 2.7K | #68 |
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 697 | #2,187 |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 1989 | 400 | #1,213 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 345 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 130 | #1,317 |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20) | 2026 | 130 | #1,317 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 82 | — |
| PL Poland | dane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names) | — | 19 | #6,150 |
Reference works 7
- The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
- Rymut, Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (10 vols, IJP PAN, Kraków 1992–1994) — every Polish surname in the PESEL register at the end of 1990, with bearer counts nationally and per voivodeship1990
- 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 does the name Carol mean, and where does it come from?
- From Irish Gaelic Ó Cearbhaill or Mac Cearbhaill, ‘descendant/son of Cearbhal’, perhaps from cearbh ‘hack’, hence possibly ‘butcher’ or ‘ferocious warrior’. Recorded by Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history].
- Is Carol a male or female name?
- Carol is recorded for both men and women. We don't publish a percentage split: a record's gender belongs to the person and is attached to every given name on that record, so names in cultures where a name string also carries a parent's or spouse's given name pick up large cross-gender counts.
- What are other forms of the name Carol?
- In the etymology graph, Carlos, Charles and Carl are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Carol have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 614 thousand people named Carol, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled carol.
- How common is the name Carol?
- In the United States, the national register counted 614,466 people named Carol in 2020, about 1 in 541 residents.
- How common is Carol compared with other names?
- In the United States, Carol is the 50th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Carol?
Nobody replies to these one by one, but what readers ask decides what these pages answer next.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/carolThe same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use; a free API key gives 1,000 requests a day, and bulk access is licensed separately.
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, “Carol” — the 50th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.