Carole

given name · Latin script

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

Carole 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: Feminine form of Charles; from Germanic *karl* ‘man, virile’.

rarermore common
  • PLPoland1 in 231as Karol(measured from records)
  • IEIreland≈1 in 296as Carol
  • GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 323as Carol

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 Carole 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)

614,466 named Carol, 2020

#121 (measured from records)

of 15M given names

5 (measured from records)

recorded for this name

Sources
632 (measured from records)

Highest-authority source

≈1 in 673 (inferred from the name graph)

France, est.

measured from records inferred from the name graph

Name dossier (print, CSV)

Spellings & scripts(measured from records)

CarolLatin(measured from records)
קארולHebrew(measured from records)
КаролCyrillic(measured from records)
แครอลThai(measured from records)
కిర్లTelugu(measured from records)

Locally spelled Carol in US United States, GB United Kingdom, SE Sweden and 3 more.

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)

Feminine form of Charles; from Germanic *karl* ‘man, virile’.

Sources 1

  • Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

Attested across 16 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world(measured from records)

Carole 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 Carole is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
US United States#50614,466as Carol1 in 541612KCarol632
GB United Kingdom#47≈200,000 est.≈1 in 3234Carol323
SE Sweden—198,642as Karl1 in 51199KCarol71
PL Poland#263165,862as Karol1 in 231166KCarol45
FR France—≈100,000 est.≈1 in 673106K—13
IE Ireland#31≈17,000 est.≈1 in 296listedCarol136
NZ New Zealand#49≈14,000 est.≈1 in 35214Carol154

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 names spelled this way(inferred from the name graph)

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

  • French given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Canada, Spain

    Languages: French, Spanish, Portuguese

    Also written Carolé

  • a separate name2 spellings in the group

    Also written Carolé

  • Italian given name2 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Italy, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Carõle

  • Greek given name6 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Greece, United States, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Carol, Carroll, Karol, Καρολ, Κάρολ

  • Croatian given name8 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Bulgaria, Canada

    Languages: Croatian, Bulgarian, Slovenian

    Also written Цароле

61 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)

Carole is also recorded in 4 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In French, Feminine form of Charles, from Germanic karl, 'free man'.

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In French, Féminin de Charles, du germanique Karl « homme libre ».

    as a nameDictionnaire généalogique des prénoms

  • French form of CAROL , formerly quite commonly used in the English-speaking world in order to make it clear that a female name was in question. Now that Carol is used almost exclusively for girls, Carole has become slightly less common.

    as a word

  • In enm, carol (round dance accompanied by singing)

    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)

19001920194019601980Carole Lombard, b. 1908Carole Landis, b. 1919Carole Eastman, b. 1934Carole Shelley, b. 1939Penny Marshall, b. 1943Carole Laure, b. 1948Carole Middleton, b. 1955Carole Bouquet, b. 1957Carole Delga, b. 1971

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 74 sources across 44 countries.

Official registers attesting Carole
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)2016106K#2,110
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202081K#653
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—189#5,439
SE SwedenSCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023)202091—
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex202073#653
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL living persons (names)—41#2,578
PL Polanddane.gov.pl — PESEL given names (first + second name position, 2026-01-20)202641#2,578
NZ New ZealandDIA — Baby name popularity (1900–present)197211—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20259—
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)19617—
GB United KingdomNRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present)19934#547

Reference works 3

  • 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 Carole mean, and where does it come from?
Feminine form of Charles; from Germanic *karl* ‘man, virile’. Recorded by Le grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education).
Is Carole a male or female name?
Carole 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 Carole?
In the etymology graph, Carolyn, Carolina and Carla are forms of the same name in other languages.
In which country does Carole 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.
How common is the name Carole?
In the United States, the national register counted 614,466 people named Carol in 2020, about 1 in 541 residents.
How common is Carole compared with other names?
In the United States, Carole is the 50th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.

What do you want to know about Carole?

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

The same 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), 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, “Carole” — the 50th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.

See how Carole parses inside a full name →