Humanverse

Karaline vs Kari

American parents have registered 60,627 Karis since 1880, against 779 Karalines. Kari is still ahead, with 113 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Karaline against Kari, 1880 to 2025 0 600 1.2k 1.8k 2.4k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Karaline Kari

Each line is every baby given the name that year, girls and boys added together — the only count that means the same thing for both names. A line breaks where the name fell below five babies in a year — the point at which the SSA stops publishing it — rather than being drawn through a figure nobody published. A single published year in a gap shows as a dot.

Who was ahead

Kari has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1934 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2014, when Karaline had 40 and Kari had 116.

Side by side

  Karaline Kari
Total US births 77960,627
Most in one year 402,243
Babies in 2025 14113
Estimated living today 77057,000
Median age today 1546
Peak year 20141975
Best rank 3,778th girls129th girls
Rank in 2025 7,491st2,076th
First recorded 19751934
Girls / boys 779 / 059,696 / 931

A rank is a position within one sex’s list for one year, so the two rank rows are not subtracted from one another and the winning column is not marked on them. The living figure is a life-table estimate, not a count.

Which name is older

Half of the Karis alive today are over 46; half the Karalines are over 15. That is 31 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

Social Security Administration birth records, 1880–2025, public domain. Full histories: Karaline and Kari.