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Kareli vs Karina

American parents have registered 61,717 Karinas since 1880, against 513 Karelis. Karina is still ahead, with 363 babies in 2025.

Babies given each name, 1880–2025

Births per year: Kareli against Karina, 1880 to 2025 0 800 1.6k 2.4k 3.2k 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020

Kareli Karina

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

Karina has been the commoner name in every year either was published, 1956 to 2025. The lead has never changed hands.

The closest they came was 2025, when Kareli had 36 and Karina had 363.

Side by side

  Kareli Karina
Total US births 51361,717
Most in one year 363,001
Babies in 2025 36363
Estimated living today 51061,000
Median age today 1427
Peak year 20251995
Best rank 3,975th girls109th girls
Rank in 2025 3,975th749th
First recorded 19911956
Girls / boys 513 / 061,464 / 253

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 Karinas alive today are over 27; half the Karelis are over 14. That is 13 years between them: two names in use at the same time, worn by two different generations.

Where each one is strongest

How much commoner the name is in that state than it is nationally, from births recorded since 1910.

Compare something else

Related comparisons

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