Katherine
given name · Latin script
Meaning: Greek name of uncertain meaning; brought to Western Europe by crusaders and established in Ireland
Recorded as a female name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise
/kæθəɹɪn/(machine-generated) pronunciation, model-generated
Katherine is a given name written in the Latin script, with more bearers in Russia than in any other country, where it is the 16th most common given name.
- USUnited States1 in 707(measured from records)
- BYBelarus≈1 in 41as Екатерина
- CZCzechia1 in 45as Kateřina
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 Katherine 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.
- Russia (inferred from the name graph)
- #18 (measured from records)
- 9 (measured from records)
- Sources
- 624 (measured from records)
- 1 in 358 (inferred from the name graph)
≈2,600,000 named Екатерина, est.
of 15M given names
recorded for this name
Highest-authority source
Costa Rica
measured from records inferred from the name graph
Spellings & scripts(measured from records)
Locally spelled Екатерина in RU Russia, BY Belarus, CN China, Ekaterina in CZ Czechia, MD Moldova, Catherine in US United States and Катерина in UA Ukraine.
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)
Greek name of uncertain meaning; brought to Western Europe by crusaders and established in Ireland.
Sources 1
- Irish first names
Attested across 10 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world(measured from records)
Katherine 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 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RU Russia | #16 | ≈2,600,000 est. | ≈1 in 54 | #13 | Екатерина | 287 |
| CN China | — | ≈2,100,000 est. | ≈1 in 668 | — | Екатерина | 76 |
| UA Ukraine | #25 | ≈550,000 est. | ≈1 in 79 | listed | Катерина | 160 |
| US United States | #29 | 470,588 | 1 in 707 | 470K | Catherine | 624 |
| FR France | — | ≈260,000 est. | ≈1 in 264 | 395K | Ekaterine | 80 |
| CZ Czechia | #503 | 236,254as Kateřina | 1 in 45 | 236K | Ekaterina | 62 |
| BY Belarus | #14 | ≈230,000 est. | ≈1 in 41 | 16 | Екатерина | 70 |
| MD Moldova | #444 | 43,869as Ecaterina | 1 in 77 | 44K | Ekaterina | 31 |
| CR Costa Rica | — | 14,230 | 1 in 358 | 31K | — | 4 |
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; INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024); MVČR — living population register 2017; Universal Dependencies Belarusian-HSE Corpus — Person Names (UD_Belarusian-HSE); e-services.md — living population register; TSE — electoral roll (padrón) 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)
Katherine is also recorded in 3 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In English, Pure form of Catherine; also used as an independent name
as a nameBaby names, 25,350 baby names nicknames for your family, friends pets, including the top 100 names, 2,000 most popular…
In English, A female given name from Ancient Greek, a popular spelling variant of Catherine.
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
In English, river town, Australia
as a namePronouncing Dictionary of Proper 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)
- Catherine Opalińskab. 1680PLPolish queen (1680-1747)
- Katherine Mansfieldb. 1888NZNew Zealand author (1888–1923)
- Mira Sorvinob. 1967USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress
- Catherine Zeta-Jonesb. 1969GBBritish actress (born 1969)
- Kate Mossb. 1974GBnot in their usual nameEnglish model and businesswoman
- Katherine Heiglb. 1978USAmerican actress (born 1978)
- Natalyab. 1982CAnot in their usual nameCanadian professional wrestler and professional wrestling manager
- Kat Denningsb. 1986USnot in their usual nameAmerican actress (born 1986)
- Kate Uptonb. 1992USnot in their usual nameAmerican model and actress (born 1992)
- Katherine Langfordb. 1996AUAustralian actress (born 1996)
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 95 sources across 53 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 470K | #96 |
| CR Costa Rica | TSE — electoral roll (padrón) names | — | 14K | #25 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2025 | 1.7K | — |
| FR France | INSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024) | 2021 | 1.4K | #2,963 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 404 | #96 |
| CZ Czechia | MVČR — living population register 2017 | — | 84 | #1,486 |
| CZ Czechia | naše jména — 2016 MVČR snapshot | — | 42 | #1,465 |
| MD Moldova | e-services.md — living population register | — | 17 | #2,167 |
| US United States | SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) | 2015 | 9 | — |
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 are other forms of the name Katherine?
- In the etymology graph, Kathleen, Catherine and Kathryn are forms of the same name in other languages; Kathy, Kay and Kate are recorded short or pet forms.
- What does the name Katherine mean, and where does it come from?
- Greek name of uncertain meaning; brought to Western Europe by crusaders and established in Ireland. Recorded by Irish first names.
- Is Katherine a male or female name?
- Katherine 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.
- How common is the name Katherine?
- In the United States, the national register counted 470,588 people named Katherine in 2020, about 1 in 707 residents.
- How common is Katherine compared with other names?
- In Russia, Katherine is the 16th most common given name of 472,143 given names recorded there.
- In which country does Katherine have the most bearers?
- Mondonomo estimates about 2.6 million people named Екатерина in Russia, more than in any other country we hold.
- Where is Katherine most common?
- Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Katherine is densest in Costa Rica — about 1 in 358 people — even though Russia holds more of our records for it.
- How do you pronounce Katherine?
- A machine transcription gives /kæθəɹɪn/ (IPA) for English.
What do you want to know about Katherine?
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/katherineThe 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, “Katherine” — the 16th most common given name in Russia. Data snapshot 2026-10-10.