Name Trends

See the popularity of first names over time in the USA

How popular is “Karen” in the USA?

Number of people named “Karen” by birth year

This chart shows how many people named “Karen” were born each year.

Due to changes to population growth and data collection rates over time, this isn't a good chart for understanding popularity.

Popularity of “Karen” by birth year

This chart shows how the popularity of “Karen” has changed over time.

Popularity is the number of people named “Karen” born in that year divided by the total number of births for that year.

Bias in sex for “Karen” by birth year

This chart shows how “Karen” has been used as gendered name over time. The scale ranges from 1 (only females) to -1 (only males).

Sex is a required field in SSA's Social Security Card applications (only 2 options). Most applications are filed around a person's time of birth.

The raw data

This table shows the data used in the above charts.

Year Count Proportion Females Males Bias toward female
1881 6 0.000031138 6 100%
1885 10 0.000041519 10 100%
1886 9 0.00003525 9 100%
1887 9 0.00003638 9 100%
1888 5 0.000016696 5 100%
1889 10 0.000034609 10 100%
1890 14 0.00004645 14 100%
1891 6 0.00002093 6 100%
1892 10 0.000029907 10 100%
1893 7 0.000021524 7 100%
1894 11 0.000032478 11 100%
1896 9 0.000025176 9 100%
1897 5 0.000014411 5 100%
1898 8 0.000020972 8 100%
1899 9 0.00002653 9 100%
1900 8 0.000017768 8 100%
1901 5 0.000014459 5 100%
1903 8 0.000020986 8 100%
1904 11 0.000027262 11 100%
1905 11 0.000025948 11 100%
1906 16 0.000037344 16 100%
1907 14 0.000030082 14 100%
1908 13 0.000026604 13 100%
1909 12 0.000023473 12 100%
1910 11 0.000018622 11 100%
1911 11 0.000017073 11 100%
1912 28 0.000028338 28 100%
1913 12 0.000010553 12 100%
1914 34 0.000024005 34 100%
1915 36 0.000019646 36 100%
1916 42 0.000021712 42 100%
1917 47 0.000023421 47 100%
1918 56 0.000025793 56 100%
1919 27 0.000012795 27 100%
1920 42 0.000018562 42 100%
1921 42 0.000017991 42 100%
1922 50 0.000021842 50 100%
1923 48 0.000020847 48 100%
1924 58 0.000024353 58 100%
1925 49 0.000021 49 100%
1926 62 0.000027005 62 100%
1927 57 0.000024576 57 100%
1928 78 0.000034499 78 100%
1929 78 0.000035581 78 100%
1930 100 0.000044978 100 100%
1931 152 0.00007223 152 100%
1932 303 0.000143514 303 100%
1933 453 0.000226563 453 100%
1934 588 0.000283126 588 100%
1935 1105 0.000528733 1097 8 99%
1936 1731 0.000833182 1718 13 98%
1937 2241 0.001051782 2232 9 99%
1938 4529 0.002046937 4508 21 99%
1939 5558 0.002522417 5541 17 99%
1940 7320 0.003178898 7283 37 99%
1941 10875 0.004463507 10831 44 99%
1942 15451 0.005655941 15386 65 99%
1943 16870 0.005976846 16816 54 99%
1944 15993 0.005945179 15944 49 99%
1945 15732 0.005930092 15680 52 99%
1946 19686 0.00616091 19647 39 100%
1947 21685 0.006019728 21648 37 100%
1948 22032 0.006381429 21996 36 100%
1949 22509 0.006459238 22468 41 100%
1950 24168 0.006898524 24132 36 100%
1951 28032 0.00760966 27998 34 100%
1952 28993 0.007633745 28957 36 100%
1953 29916 0.007763042 29858 58 100%
1954 32509 0.008166637 32456 53 100%
1955 33269 0.008286011 33219 50 100%
1956 40124 0.009731662 40052 72 100%
1957 40667 0.009677681 40590 77 100%
1958 38554 0.009326293 38488 66 100%
1959 36863 0.008865577 36783 80 100%
1960 36452 0.008775547 36380 72 100%
1961 34776 0.008395334 34697 79 100%
1962 35263 0.008738476 35188 75 100%
1963 32570 0.008228487 32487 83 99%
1964 30338 0.007803776 30247 91 99%
1965 32951 0.009088805 32870 81 100%
1966 25513 0.007340487 25449 64 99%
1967 21594 0.006360723 21540 54 99%
1968 19610 0.005804501 19561 49 100%
1969 17709 0.005095642 17635 74 99%
1970 16748 0.004643819 16700 48 99%
1971 14270 0.004157495 14213 57 99%
1972 11229 0.003572708 11180 49 99%
1973 9392 0.003113143 9352 40 99%
1974 8680 0.002855264 8644 36 99%
1975 8197 0.002714783 8168 29 99%
1976 7541 0.002485252 7505 36 99%
1977 7468 0.00235102 7441 27 99%
1978 6393 0.00201426 6371 22 99%
1979 5631 0.001692516 5599 32 99%
1980 5082 0.001475393 5055 27 99%
1981 4562 0.001318735 4539 23 99%
1982 4184 0.001192715 4153 31 99%
1983 3810 0.001100094 3788 22 99%
1984 3565 0.001021854 3537 28 98%
1985 3164 0.000886496 3138 26 98%
1986 2824 0.00079391 2801 23 98%
1987 2615 0.000725258 2580 35 97%
1988 2587 0.000700127 2567 20 98%
1989 2796 0.000727283 2759 37 97%
1990 2733 0.000691465 2715 18 99%
1991 2621 0.000672868 2600 21 98%
1992 2791 0.000726582 2766 25 98%
1993 2840 0.00075326 2807 33 98%
1994 2504 0.000673543 2487 17 99%
1995 2288 0.000624769 2269 19 98%
1996 2417 0.000662701 2401 16 99%
1997 2234 0.000616149 2225 9 99%
1998 2079 0.000565221 2073 6 99%
1999 2186 0.000591792 2172 14 99%
2000 2194 0.000580438 2174 20 98%
2001 2213 0.000591175 2195 18 98%
2002 2230 0.000596529 2224 6 99%
2003 2341 0.000615677 2331 10 99%
2004 2180 0.000570543 2168 12 99%
2005 2074 0.000539424 2065 9 99%
2006 2041 0.000515901 2030 11 99%
2007 2184 0.000546316 2172 12 99%
2008 1821 0.00046328 1816 5 99%
2009 1433 0.000375114 1433 100%
2010 1295 0.000350404 1287 8 99%
2011 1111 0.000303735 1104 7 99%
2012 901 0.000246352 896 5 99%
2013 730 0.000200238 730 100%
2014 633 0.000170787 633 100%
2015 632 0.000170769 627 5 98%
2016 617 0.00016818 617 100%
2017 561 0.000156871 554 7 98%
2018 470 0.000133679 470 100%
2019 445 0.000128208 439 6 97%
2020 337 0.000100881 331 6 96%
2021 229 0.000067593 229 100%
2022 199 0.000058821 199 100%
2023 231 0.000069763 226 5 96%
2024 184 0.00005528 184 100%

Explore other names

These names are alphabetically near to Karen:

  1. Karelyn
  2. Karelys
  3. Karem
  4. Karema
  5. Kareme
  6. Karen (this page)
  7. Karena
  8. Karenann
  9. Karenda
  10. Karene
  11. Karenina