# Karl (first name)

Source: https://namelineage.com/first-name/karl/  
Publisher: Name Lineage. US counts from the Social Security Administration; England and Wales counts from the Office for National Statistics; meaning and etymology from Wiktionary. Data updated 2026-11-11.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Usually given to | boys |
| Origin | not recorded |
| Meaning | not recorded |
| Pronunciation | not recorded |
| Nicknames | none recorded |
| Variant spellings | Carl |
| US babies named this | 101,751 since 1880 |
| Boys / girls in the US | 100,836 / 915 (1% girls) |
| Babies in England and Wales | 2,689, 1996 to 2025 |

## Etymology

From German and North Germanic (Scandinavian) Karl, from Germanic. Doublet of Charles.

## Popularity

The last 15 years of each series. A year is missing when too few babies were given the name for the agency to publish it: five in the US, three in England and Wales.

### United States, girls

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 1978 | 22 | 3,435 |
| 1979 | 21 | 3,709 |
| 1980 | 24 | 3,452 |
| 1981 | 27 | 3,176 |
| 1982 | 27 | 3,212 |
| 1983 | 29 | 2,940 |
| 1984 | 24 | 3,461 |
| 1985 | 31 | 2,971 |
| 1986 | 29 | 3,162 |
| 1987 | 23 | 3,791 |
| 1988 | 23 | 3,952 |
| 1989 | 14 | 5,967 |
| 1990 | 6 | 12,057 |
| 1991 | 6 | 12,217 |
| 1993 | 9 | 9,091 |

### United States, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 173 | 1,079 |
| 2012 | 161 | 1,139 |
| 2013 | 169 | 1,099 |
| 2014 | 165 | 1,148 |
| 2015 | 184 | 1,075 |
| 2016 | 167 | 1,152 |
| 2017 | 141 | 1,289 |
| 2018 | 143 | 1,288 |
| 2019 | 145 | 1,285 |
| 2020 | 104 | 1,570 |
| 2021 | 115 | 1,535 |
| 2022 | 128 | 1,430 |
| 2023 | 101 | 1,688 |
| 2024 | 99 | 1,693 |
| 2025 | 107 | 1,593 |

### England and Wales, boys

| Year | Babies | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 54 | 626 |
| 2012 | 41 | 783 |
| 2013 | 26 | 1,044 |
| 2014 | 43 | 744 |
| 2015 | 27 | 1,046 |
| 2016 | 26 | 1,081 |
| 2017 | 31 | 968 |
| 2018 | 28 | 1,013 |
| 2019 | 19 | 1,316 |
| 2020 | 16 | 1,492 |
| 2021 | 23 | 1,184 |
| 2022 | 14 | 1,692 |
| 2023 | 18 | 1,407 |
| 2024 | 11 | 2,088 |
| 2025 | 18 | 1,466 |

## People named Karl

- Karl Marx, German-born philosopher (1818–1883)
- Karl Popper, Austrian-British philosopher of science and social and política e falsificationism and for
- Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Danish writer (1857–1919)
- Karl Dönitz, German admiral and former president of Nazi Germany in 1945 (born 1891-1980)
- Karl Weierstraß, German mathematician (1815–1897)
- Karl Lagerfeld, German fashion designer (1933–2019)
- Karl Kraus, Austrian playwright and publicist (1874–1936)
- Karl Kautsky, Czech-Austrian Marxist theorist (1854–1938)
- Karl Nehammer, Chancellor of Austria from 2021 to 2025
- Karl Barry Sharpless, American chemist and Nobel Laureate (born 1941)
- Karl Renner, first President of Austria (1870–1950)
- Karl von Frisch, German-Austrian ethologist (1886-1982)

## How to read these numbers

A count is babies registered with that name in that year, not people alive now, so a name common a century ago can have a large total and few recent births.