Karin
About 28,731 American babies have been named Karin since 1907, most of them around 1970. It has not appeared in the national data since 2025. About 24,000 Karins are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 58.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Karin boys named Karin
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 28,731
- Estimated living today
- 24,000
- Median age today
- 58
- Peak year
- 1970
- Best rank
- 278th
- Rank in 2025
- unranked
- First recorded
- 1907
- Girls / boys
- 28,532 / 199
How old the living Karins are
born that year still alive today
Of the 28,731 babies given the name since 1907, about 24,000 are alive — 85 in every hundred. Roughly 510 of them are children and 7,100 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1967 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 Danish, from Ancient Greek
From Swedish Karin or Danish Karin, a medieval form of Katarina, ultimately from Ancient Greek Αἰκατερῑ́νη. See also Karen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Notable Karins
- Karin Boye (1900–1941)Swedish poet and novelist
- Karin Keller-Sutter (born 1963)Swiss politician
- Karin Dor (1938–2017)German actress
- Karin Kneissl (born 1965)Austrian diplomat, journalist and politician
- Karin Viard (born 1966)French actress
- Karin Dreijer (born 1975)Swedish musician
- Karin Knapp (born 1987)Italian tennis player
- Karin Månsdotter (1550–1612)Swedish queen consort
People named Karin with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Karin is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Karin is most concentrated in Minnesota (2.7×), Washington (2.3×), Connecticut (2.0×), New Jersey (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 1970
The most popular girls’ names the year Karin peaked:
Karin elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norway girls | Karin | 9,444 | 12th |
| Austria girls | Karin | 3,254 | 14th |
| France girls | Karin | 2,035 | 281st |
| Sweden girls | Karin | 441 | 82nd |
| Italy girls | Karin | 410 | — |
| Scotland girls | Karin | 212 | 212th |
| England and Wales girls | Karin | 146 | 1,993rd |
| Ireland girls | Karin | 52 | 245th |
| France boys | Karin | 10 | 1,859th |
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.
Karin: rank by region
In 2019, Karin was among the 10 most common names in 1 region of Italy.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Valle d'Aosta/Vallée d'Aoste | Karin | 10 | 1 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Italy after 10 names – 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.
Karin 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 | Karin | 22,966 | 26,304 |
| Finland girls | Karin | 1,618 | 3,345 |
| the Netherlands boys | Karin | — | 115 |
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 Karin lives in Spain
Not a count of births but of people: 763 women called Karin 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Balears, Illes | Karin | 95 | 0.151 | 535 |
| Santa Cruz de Tenerife | Karin | 76 | 0.137 | 723 |
| Alicante/Alacant | Karin | 95 | 0.092 | 851 |
| Palmas, Las | Karin | 52 | 0.088 | 1,108 |
| Málaga | Karin | 77 | 0.084 | 821 |
| Tarragona | Karin | 23 | 0.053 | 1,271 |
Listed in 24 of Spain's 52 provinces. In the other 28 it is either held by fewer than 5 people – the point below which the source withholds a name – or it fell past the 5,000 names the source will print for one province. Neither means nobody there is called it. The rate is the source's own, not a share worked out here.
Related names
Karin 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.