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Karee vs Kari

American parents have registered 60,627 Karis since 1880, against 841 Karees. Kari is still ahead, with 113 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

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

Karee 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 1958, when Karee had 55 and Kari had 489.

Side by side

  Karee Kari
Total US births 84160,627
Most in one year 552,243
Babies in 2025 under 5113
Estimated living today 79057,000
Median age today 4046
Peak year 19581975
Best rank 1,435th girls129th girls
Rank in 2025 unranked2,076th
First recorded 19531934
Girls / boys 756 / 8559,696 / 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 Karees are over 40. That is 6 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: Karee and Kari.