Karna
given name · Latin script
Meaning: ear. skilful; clever; the rudder of a ship; handle of a vessel; an instrument of action; document; field
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kɑɹnə/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Karna is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Nepal than in any other country.
- GBUnited Kingdom≈1 in 31Kas Karan(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 32Kas Kiran
- DKDenmark1 in 14K
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 Karna 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.
- Nepal (inferred from the name graph)
- 7 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 442 (measured from records)
- 1 in 14K (inferred from the name graph)
≈35,000 named Karan, est.
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Denmark
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Karan in GB United Kingdom, KW Kuwait, QA Qatar and 4 more and Kearney in US United States.
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)
ear. skilful; clever; the rudder of a ship; handle of a vessel; an instrument of action; document; field.
Sources 1
- The Penguin book of Hindu names for boys
Attested across 6 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Karna 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NP Nepal | — | ≈35,000 est. | ≈1 in 869 | 3 | Karan | 51 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈19,000 est. | ≈1 in 14K | #23 | Karan | 62 |
| US United States | — | 10,388as Kiran | 1 in 32K | 21K | Kearney | 442 |
| AE United Arab Emirates | — | ≈2,900 est. | ≈1 in 3.4K | — | Karan | 39 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | ≈2,100 est. | ≈1 in 31K | 7 | Karan | 216 |
| QA Qatar | #213 | ≈790 est. | ≈1 in 3.1K | — | Karan | 20 |
| DK Denmark | — | 412 | 1 in 14K | 406 | — | — |
| KW Kuwait | #804 | ≈290 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Karan | 12 |
| BH Bahrain | #264 | ≈220 est. | ≈1 in 6.9K | — | Karan | 14 |
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; Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; NRS — Baby names Scotland full list (1974–present); Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts); Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names. 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)
Karna 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, Name of a warrior who fought for the Kauravas in the Mahabharata; son of Kunti and Surya.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Radhika (N)
as a nameSunama Sarit (Hindi) Ten Thousand Sanskrit Names
In German, weibl. Vom., südschwedische und dänische Kurzform von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Polish, feminine nominative/vocative singular of karny
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In Indonesian, nonstandard form of karena
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)
- Karna Asker-Ericsonb. 1897SESwedish textile artist (1897–1989)
- Karna Lidmar-Bergströmb. 1940SESwedish scientist
- Karna Shakyab. 1943NPNepalese writer
- Karna Dasb. 1974NPNepalese musician
- Karna Solskjærb. 2003NONorwegian footballer
- Karna Bahadur ThapaNPNepalese politician
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 40 sources across 16 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 656 | #12,037 |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 406 | #655 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 391 | #12,037 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2000 | 6 | — |
| DK Denmark | Danmarks Statistik — Hvor mange hedder...? (living-population name counts) | — | 6 | #9,734 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 1985 | 5 | — |
| NP Nepal | Wikidata humans by citizenship — given & family names | — | 3 | #53 |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
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 Karna mean, and where does it come from?
- ear. skilful; clever; the rudder of a ship; handle of a vessel; an instrument of action; document; field. Recorded by The Penguin book of Hindu names for boys.
- How common is the name Karna?
- In Denmark, the national register counted 412 people named Karna, about 1 in 14 thousand residents.
- How common is Karna compared with other names?
- In Qatar, Karna is the 213th most common given name of 12,797 given names recorded there.
- How do you pronounce Karna?
- A machine transcription gives /kɑɹnə/ (IPA) for Hindi.
- Is Karna a male or female name?
- Karna 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 Karna?
- In the etymology graph, Karan is a form of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Karna have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 35 thousand people named Karan in Nepal, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Karna most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Karna is densest in Denmark — about 1 in 14 thousand people — even though Nepal holds more of our records for it.
What do you want to know about Karna?
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/karnaThe 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, “Karna” — the 213th most common given name in Qatar. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.