Carolina
Carolina reached its high-water mark in 2004 at number 254, and has been recorded 48,108 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 405th. About 43,000 Carolinas are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 25.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Carolina boys named Carolina
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 48,108
- Estimated living today
- 43,000
- Median age today
- 25
- Peak year
- 2004
- Best rank
- 254th
- Rank in 2025
- 405th
- First recorded
- 1880
- Girls / boys
- 47,971 / 137
How old the living Carolinas are
born that year still alive today
Of the 48,108 babies given the name since 1880, about 43,000 are alive — 89 in every hundred. Roughly 13,000 of them are children and 1,900 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 2000 and half after.
An estimate, not a count. SSA births aged forward through SSA cohort life tables, which know nothing about who left the country or arrived in it — so for a name that mostly came to America rather than being born in it, this is a floor rather than a figure. Where you fall among living Americans.
Where the name comes from
Origin Latin
From Italian Carolina or its etymon Latin Carolīna, from Carolus (“Charles”) + -īna..
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Carolinas
- Carolina Klüft (born 1983)Swedish heptathlete and long jumper
- Carolina Marín (born 1993)Spanish badminton player
- Carolina Kostner (born 1987)Italian figure skater
- Princess Maria Carolina, Duchess of Berry (1798–1870)Two Sicilian Royal
- Carolina Herrera (born 1939)Venezuelan-American fashion designer
- Carolina Coronado (1820–1911)Spanish author, editor
- Princess Maria Carolina of Parma (1770–1804)Italian princess
- Carolina Morace (born 1964)Italian footballer
People named Carolina with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Carolina is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Carolina is most concentrated in Texas (3.4×), California (2.8×), Arizona (2.6×), Florida (2.4×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2004
The most popular girls’ names the year Carolina peaked:
Carolina elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spain girls | Carolina | 14,241 | 50th |
| Italy girls | Carolina | 10,653 | — |
| Portugal girls | Carolina | 7,510 name registrations | 4th |
| France girls | Carolina | 1,505 | 917th |
| Switzerland girls | Carolina | 941 | 158th |
| England and Wales girls | Carolina | 745 | 845th |
| Norway girls | Carolina | 303 | 296th |
| Belgium girls | Carolina | 249 | 570th |
| Poland girls | Carolina | 218 birth registrations | 203rd |
| Ireland girls | Carolina | 70 | 582nd |
| Scotland girls | Carolina | 11 | 570th |
Counts come from each country's own records and are not comparable with the US figures above, which cover different years and a different definition of a recorded name. Where a country writes the name several ways, the spellings are added together and the most common is shown. A row marked name registrations is counting something else: Portugal ranks each of a child's two given names separately, so a girl registered Maria Leonor is in both the Maria row and the Leonor row, and that figure is not a number of children.
Carolina: births by region
| Region | Country | Spelling | Births | Share of the region | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| German girls | Switzerland | Carolina | 484 | 0.039% | 169th |
| French girls | Switzerland | Carolina | 368 | 0.085% | 98th |
| Italian girls | Switzerland | Carolina | 86 | 0.132% | 41st |
| Romansh girls | Switzerland | Carolina | 3 | 0.081% | 13th |
Parts of a country counted above, not extra births. The share is what makes the regions comparable: they differ in size by a factor of three hundred.
By canton, Carolina is most concentrated in Ticino, where 0.13% of children were given it – 83 of them.
Carolina: rank by region
In 2024, Carolina was given 5 times or more in 2 regions of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Carolina | 839 | 5 |
| Brussels | Carolina | 241 | 5 |
In 2016, Carolina was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Carolina | 10 | 1 |
In 2024, Carolina was given 2 times or more in 1 region of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Małopolskie | Carolina | 239 | 2 |
In 2024, with the country taken in 11 areas rather than 3, Carolina appears in the lists for Brussels-Capital Region (241st).
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, Italy after 10 names, Poland below 2 children – and published nothing after. So a region missing here is one where the name fell outside what was published, not one where it went unused. Places are shared where names tie, and the further down a list a place is, the more names can share it.
Carolina by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin girls | 2017–2023 | 36 | 276th |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Carolina among the living
How many people each country's register counts under the name, rather than how many were given it in any one year. Each register was read on one date, and they are not the same date.
| Country | Spelling | First forename | Any forename |
|---|---|---|---|
| the Netherlands girls | Carolina | 13,284 | 29,965 |
| Finland girls | Carolina | 566 | 2,129 |
| the Netherlands boys | Carolina | 5 | 490 |
A count of people on a register – the Netherlands on 1 January 2018, Finland on 4 August 2026 – and not of births, so it cannot be compared with the figures above. Names with very few bearers are withheld, and a dash in the first-forename column means the register would not say rather than that nobody goes by it.
Where Carolina lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 69,667 women called Carolina were living in Spain on 1 January 2025, of every age, born in any year. Where they live is not spread evenly.
Women: the provinces where it is densest
| Province | Spelling | People | Per thousand | Place there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toledo | Carolina | 1,396 | 3.718 | 58 |
| Madrid | Carolina | 13,520 | 3.648 | 53 |
| Valencia/València | Carolina | 4,978 | 3.528 | 58 |
| Guadalajara | Carolina | 485 | 3.451 | 59 |
| Valladolid | Carolina | 934 | 3.443 | 64 |
| Cantabria | Carolina | 1,053 | 3.439 | 61 |
Listed in 52 of Spain's 52 provinces. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Carolina against another name
Two names on one chart, with the year one overtook the other.
Try it on yourself
Source: US Social Security Administration, national and state baby-name files, 1880–2025. Counts include only births registered with the SSA, and names with fewer than five births in a year are not published. The living estimate applies SSA cohort life tables to those births; it counts people born in the United States, so it misses anyone who arrived later and anyone who has left.