Carolus
surname · Latin script
Meaning, in English: An old English gold coin, worth 20 (or later 23) shillings
Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
Carolus is a surname written in the Latin script, with more bearers in South Africa than in any other country.
- ZASouth Africa≈1 in 10K(inferred from the name graph)
- USUnited States1 in 507K
- BEBelgium1 in 54K
carrying the name, as counted by its national register where one exists and as Mondonomo estimates it elsewhere (marked ≈ and "est." on hover). One hue, darker where it is more common; hover a country for its figure.
- South Africa (inferred from the name graph)
- Sources
- 161 (measured from records)
- ≈1 in 10K (inferred from the name graph)
≈5,600 people, est.
Highest-authority source
South Africa, est.
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Meaning & origin(measured from records)
An old English gold coin, worth 20 (or later 23) shillings.
Sources 1
- kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
Attested across 13 languages in the etymology graph.
How Carolus is read(measured from records)
Carolus is one spelling over 2 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.
- English65%
An old English gold coin, worth 20 (or later 23) shillings.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
- French8.0%
Ancienne monnaie émise par des rois Charles ( Carolus en latin), notamment par Charles VIII, que l’on employa comme monnaie de comptes jusqu’à la fin du XVIII e siècle.
as a name2500 noms propres devenus communs : dictionnaire étymologique (éponymes, antonomases et hypallages)
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 We do not publish a gender of our own per language: our records carry one figure for the spelling as a whole.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)
Carolus 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ZA South Africa | — | ≈5,600 est. | ≈1 in 10K | — | Carolus | 49 |
| ID Indonesia | — | ≈770 est. | ≈1 in 345K | listed | — | 1 |
| US United States | — | 656 | 1 in 507K | 656 | Carolus | 161 |
| BE Belgium | — | 218 | 1 in 54K | 218 | Carolus | 33 |
| DE Germany | — | ≈190 est. | ≈1 in 423K | listed | Carolus | 49 |
| NL Netherlands | — | 129 | 1 in 134K | 13K | Carolus | 48 |
| BB Barbados | #834 | — | — | — | Carolus | 2 |
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: CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007); Meertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (all-time BRP bearer counts, 2018); Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010; Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register). 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)
Carolus 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 Swedish, Se Karl.
as a nameFörnamn i Sverige. Kortfattat namnlexikon
In German, latinisierte Form zu Karl; 85 Belege.
as a nameDeutscher Familiennamenatlas, Band 6: Familiennamen aus Rufnamen
In German, ) Karolus: männl. Vom., latini sierte Form von
as a nameDUDEN Lexikon der Vornamen
In Latin, a male given name from the Germanic languages
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)
- Johann Carolusb. 1575DEGerman publisher of the first newspaper
- Andreas Carolusb. 1632DEGerman theologian and clergyman
- Henri Carolusb. 1811BEBelgian diplomat (1811-1867)
- Jean Carolusb. 1814BEBelgian painter (1814–1897)
- Cheryl Carolusb. 1958ZASouth African politician
- Rinik Carolusb. 1987DEGerman association football player
- Jorne Carolusb. 1992BEBelgian bicycle racer
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 35 sources across 18 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 656 | #34,495 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 621 | #34,503 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 606 | #39,225 |
| BE Belgium | Familienaam.be — Belgian family-name frequency (population register) | 2008 | 218 | #7,757 |
| BE Belgium | Statbel — Noms de famille (family names) | — | 199 | #9,060 |
| NL Netherlands | CBG Familienamenbank — Dutch surname bearer counts (GBA/BRP 2007) | 2007 | 129 | #15,510 |
| US United States | wru Name Dictionary — US surnames, Census 2010 subset (Khanna et al.) | — | — | — |
Reference works 4
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- 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
- What does the name Carolus mean, and where does it come from?
- An old English gold coin, worth 20 (or later 23) shillings. Recorded by kaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations).
- What are other forms of the name Carolus?
- In the etymology graph, Kale, Carel and Carlu are forms of the same name in other languages.
- In which country does Carolus have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 5.6 thousand people named Carolus in South Africa, more than in any other country we hold, where it is most often spelled carolus.
- How common is the name Carolus?
- In the United States, the national register counted 656 people named Carolus in 2010, about 1 in 507 thousand residents.
- How common is Carolus compared with other names?
- In Barbados, Carolus is the 834th most common surname of 11,500 surnames recorded there.
What do you want to know about Carolus?
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/carolusThe 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, “Carolus” — the 834th most common surname in Barbados. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.