Kari
given name · Latin script
Meaning, in English: A female given name from Swedish, of recent usage, equivalent to English Carrie or Cary
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
/ˈkɛɹi/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Kari 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.
- 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 Kari 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 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)
People in Cameroon and Chad; also a short form of Caroline.
Sources 1
- African Names
Attested across 24 languages in the etymology graph.
How Kari is read(measured from records)
Kari is one spelling over 3 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.
- English58%
A female given name from Swedish, of recent usage, equivalent to English Carrie or Cary.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
lang., Chad, Cameroon, Central
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
African Rep.
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names
- Hindi8.6%
No dictionary in our sources glosses Kari in Hindi.
- Norwegian7.7%
a crow (black bird of the genus Corvus)
as a wordrecorded as Norwegian Nynorskkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Kari 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)
Kari is also recorded in 2 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
People in Cameroon and Chad; also a short form of Caroline.
as a nameAfrican Names
In Finnish, rock (mass of stone projecting out of water or just underwater)
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)
- Peter von Baghb. 1943FInot in their usual nameFinnish film historian and director (1943–2014)
- Kari Lizerb. 1961USAmerican actress
- Kari Wührerb. 1967USAmerican actress (b. 1967)
- Kari Juusonenb. 1967FIFinnish film director
- Kari Matchettb. 1970CACanadian actress
- Kari Ketonenb. 1971FIFinnish actor and screenwriter
- Kari Byronb. 1974UStelevision host, artist, ''MythBusters'' build team member
- Kari Traab. 1974NONorwegian freestyle skier
- Kari Wahlgrenb. 1977USAmerican voice actress
- Kari Skoglandb. 2000CACanadian screenwriter
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 80 sources across 40 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 72K | #13 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 57K | #28 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 54K | #842 |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 41K | — |
| NO Norway | SSB PxWebApi — Persons/Last names by year (StatBank tables 10501/12891) | 2025 | 22K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 687 | #842 |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navnesøk (name-search service, living population) | — | 108 | #7,339 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 90 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Nimipalvelu (Finnish name service, per-name lookup) | — | 76 | #3,600 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 23 | — |
| NO Norway | SSB — Navn (1880–present) | 2025 | 19 | — |
| FI Finland | DVV — Etunimitilasto (Finnish given names register) | — | 11 | — |
Reference works 5
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
- Wikipedia given-name tokens
- Wikipedia surname 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
- How do you pronounce Kari?
- A machine transcription gives /ˈkɛɹi/ (IPA) for English.
- Where does the name Kari come from?
- People in Cameroon and Chad; also a short form of Caroline. Recorded by African Names.
- What are other forms of the name Kari?
- In the etymology graph, Catherine, Kathy and Tina are forms of the same name in other languages; it is recorded as a short form of Katharina and Katarina.
- What does the name Kari mean?
- In English, A female given name from Swedish, of recent usage, equivalent to English Carrie or Cary.
- Is Kari a male or female name?
- Kari 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 Kari 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 Kari most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Kari is densest in Finland — about 1 in 135 people — even though China holds more of our records for it.
- How common is the name Kari?
- In Finland, the national register counted 41,301 people named Kari, about 1 in 135 residents.
- How common is Kari compared with other names?
- In Norway, Kari is the 37th most common given name of 25,788 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Kari?
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/kariThe 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, “Kari” — the 37th most common given name in Norway. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.