Karen Girl
How popular is Karen?
#1,279 girl name in 2025
175 baby girls were named Karen in the US in 2025, making it the 1279th most popular girl name.
Karen popularity over time
Boys Girls
| Rank in 2025 | #1,279 for girls (▼ 29 from 2024) |
|---|---|
| Babies in 2025 | 175 girls |
| 10-year trend | Falling fast (-72% babies vs 2015) |
| Earlier ranks | #505 in 2015, #821 in 2020 |
| Peak year | 1957 (40,591 girls) |
| Highest rank | #3 in 1965 |
| First recorded | 1881 |
| Boys vs girls (last 10 years) | 1% boys, 99% girls |
| Chance a classmate shares it | 0.1% in a class of 25 kids born in 2025 |
Karen counting every spelling
Social Security counts each spelling as its own name. Adding together the spellings that sound alike, the Karen family of names ranked #1,078 for girls in 2025 (#1,011 the year before), with 181 babies in all.
| Spelling | Girls in 2025 | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Karen | 175 | 97% |
| Karine | 6 | 3% |
Spellings are grouped by how they sound, using our own rules, so a few groupings may not match how your family says the name.
Where Karen is most popular
Babies named Karen per 1,000 girls born in each state, 2021 to 2025. Darker means more common.
- Maryland: 0.3 per 1,000 (36 girls)
- Pennsylvania: 0.3 per 1,000 (62 girls)
- New Jersey: 0.2 per 1,000 (43 girls)
- Ohio: 0.2 per 1,000 (50 girls)
- New York: 0.2 per 1,000 (68 girls)
Karen by decade
| Decade | Baby girls | Best rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1880s | 49 | #695 |
| 1890s | 79 | #727 |
| 1900s | 98 | #917 |
| 1910s | 304 | #960 |
| 1920s | 564 | #798 |
| 1930s | 16,692 | #39 |
| 1940s | 167,700 | #11 |
| 1950s | 332,531 | #4 |
| 1960s | 286,053 | #3 |
| 1970s | 95,173 | #12 |
| 1980s | 34,914 | #54 |
| 1990s | 24,516 | #116 |
| 2000s | 20,609 | #141 |
| 2010s | 7,360 | #248 |
| 2020s | 1,347 | #821 |
Girl names about as popular as Karen
Questions
- Is Karen a boy or girl name?
- Karen is mostly a girl name. Over the last 10 years, 99% of babies named Karen were girls.
- How popular is the name Karen?
- 175 baby girls were named Karen in the US in 2025, making it the 1279th most popular girl name.
- When was Karen most popular?
- Karen peaked in 1957, when 40,591 girls were given the name. Its highest rank was #3 in 1965.
- How many people are named Karen?
- 990,774 babies have been named Karen in the US since 1880. We estimate about 814,616 of them are alive in 2026, with a median age of 66.
- Where is Karen most popular?
- From 2021 to 2025, Karen was most common in Maryland, at 0.3 of every 1,000 girls born there.
Source: Social Security Administration baby name data, 1880 to 2025 (names given to at least 5 babies of a sex in a year). Living-people and median-age figures are our estimates using US life tables. How we calculate.