Popularity of the name Karen, 1881–2025

Karen was at its most popular in 1956, when 40,052 girls were given the name: about 1 in 50 girls born in the U.S. that year, ranking #7. In 2025, 175 girls were named Karen, ranking #1,279. In all, Social Security counts 987,989 girls named Karen since 1881. Social Security’s records also list 2,785 boys named Karen.

Peak year

1956

Rank in 1956

#7

Babies in 1956

40,052

Rank in 2025

#1,279

Total since 1881

987,989

Where it stands now

In the past decade the name slipped from #505 in 2015 to #1,279 in 2025: 627 girls got it in 2015, and 175 in 2025.

Decade by decade

Its best decade was the 1960s, when 286,053 girls were named Karen, #4 for the decade. It ranked #966 in the 1880s and #1,097 in the 2020s so far.

Every 20 years in the records: 8 in 1900 (#1,431), 42 in 1920 (#1,171), 7,283 in 1940 (#34), 36,378 in 1960 (#4), 5,055 in 1980 (#54), 2,174 in 2000 (#153) and 332 in 2020 (#821).

Highs and lows

The most girls given the name in a single year was 40,591, in 1957. That is not its peak year: Social Security’s records hold more girls for 1957 than for 1956, so the name’s share of births was smaller. Its best rank in any year was #3, first reached in 1965.

Every year

The table lists every year from 1881 to 2025 in which Social Security recorded at least 5 girls named Karen, with the name’s rank that year.

How these numbers are counted

Social Security publishes, for every year since 1880, how many babies of each sex were given each name, counting any name given to at least 5. A name’s rank is its place that year among names for the same sex, by number of babies. Names with the same count share a rank here, while Social Security’s own lists break ties alphabetically, so a rank can differ from theirs by a place or two. A name’s share is the number of babies given it divided by all babies of that sex in the data that year, and its peak is the year that share was highest. Shares rather than counts set the peak, because far more babies were born in some years than others: counting babies alone would pull nearly every name’s peak toward the 1946–1964 baby boom.

Source: the U.S. Social Security Administration’s national baby name data, from Social Security card applications for babies born in the U.S. A name is left out of a year when fewer than 5 babies of one sex got it, and counts before about 1937 are incomplete, because many people born then never applied for a card. See how Baby Boom builds its data. Figures may contain errors.