Karl
given name · Latin script
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Karl 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 10th most common given name. Recorded meaning: from the Germanic personal name Karl/Carolus, from *karl- 'man, husband, free man'.
- SESweden1 in 51(measured from records)
- DEGermany≈1 in 277
- IEIreland≈1 in 175as Charles
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 Karl 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)
- #36 (measured from records)
- 5 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 678 (measured from records)
- 1 in 51 (inferred from the name graph)
1,207,972 named Charles, 2020
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Sweden
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
One other spelling is counted as the same name:
Locally spelled Charles in US United States, GB United Kingdom, NG Nigeria and 3 more and Carl in SE Sweden, IE Ireland.
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 the Germanic personal name Karl/Carolus, from *karl- 'man, husband, free man'
Sources 1
- Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Karl 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 | #10 | 1,207,972as Charles | 1 in 275 | 1.2M | Charles | 678 |
| NG Nigeria | #130 | ≈340,000 est. | ≈1 in 635 | — | Charles | 170 |
| GB United Kingdom | #15 | ≈310,000 est. | ≈1 in 214 | 4 | Charles | 381 |
| DE Germany | #28 | ≈290,000 est. | ≈1 in 277 | listed | Karl | 268 |
| EG Egypt | #181 | ≈210,000 est. | ≈1 in 499 | — | Charles | 47 |
| SE Sweden | #19 | 198,642 | 1 in 51 | 199K | Carl | 187 |
| IE Ireland | #68 | ≈30,000 est. | ≈1 in 175 | — | Carl | 125 |
| SG Singapore | #5 | ≈29,000 est. | ≈1 in 213 | — | Charles | 140 |
| NZ New Zealand | #11 | ≈26,000 est. | ≈1 in 193 | — | Charles | 171 |
1,207,972 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). 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)
Karl 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 German, from the Germanic name stem meaning 'man, husband, free man'
as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung
Finnish; topographic and ornamental name from kari ‘small island’, ‘stony rapids’, ‘sandbar’, or ‘rocky place in a field’. This name is found throughout Finland.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
Germanic: ‘man’, an ancient royal and imperial name. See }\Charles in main dictionary. = 270
as a nameA concise dictionary of first names
Hungarian; from a pet form of the personal name Kdroly, Hungarian form of Charles.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
German; from a Carinthian pet form of the personal name Zacharias.
as a nameDictionary of American Family Names
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)
- Charles the Fatb. 839DEEmperor of the Carolingian Empire (839-888) (r. 881-887)
- Karl IV.b. 1316CZHoly Roman Emperor
- Karl VIb. 1685AT18th century Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor
- Friedrich Schlegelb. 1772DEnot in their usual nameGerman poet, critic and scholar, editor
- Karl Adolph Gjellerupb. 1857DKDanish writer (1857–1919)
- Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austriab. 1858ATnot in their usual nameAustrian archduke (1858-1889)
- Karl Rennerb. 1870ATfirst President of Austria (1870–1950)
- Karl Manne Georg Siegbahnb. 1886SESwedish physicist (1886-1978)
- Willy Brandb. 1913DEnot in their usual nameGerman politician (SPD), chancellor of West Germany (1969–1974) and Nobel Peace Prize laureate
- Karl Alexander Müllerb. 1927CHSwiss physicist (1927–2023)
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 126 sources across 61 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE Sweden | Skatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population) | — | 199K | #6 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 73K | #700 |
| SE Sweden | SCB — Namnstatistik (to 2023) | 2020 | 37K | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 216 | #700 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 107 | — |
Reference works 8
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- 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
- Wikipedia surname 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
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 Karl mean, and where does it come from?
- from the Germanic personal name Karl/Carolus, from *karl- 'man, husband, free man' Recorded by Deutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung.
- In which country does Karl have the most bearers?
- In the United States, the national register counted about 1.2 million people named Charles, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Karl most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Karl is densest in Sweden — about 1 in 51 people — even though United States holds more of our records for it.
- What are other forms of the name Karl?
- In the etymology graph, Carlos, Charles and Carol are forms of the same name in other languages; Kalle is a recorded short or pet form.
- Is Karl a male or female name?
- Karl is a male 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.
- How common is the name Karl?
- In Sweden, the national register counted 198,642 people named Karl, about 1 in 51 residents.
- How common is Karl compared with other names?
- In the United States, Karl is the 10th most common given name of 2,815,431 given names recorded there.
What do you want to know about Karl?
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/karlThe 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, “Karl” — the 10th most common given name in United States. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.