Karol
Karol reached its high-water mark in 2005 at number 818, and has been recorded 11,131 times in all. In 2025 it ranked 3,389th. About 8,700 Karols are alive in the United States today, and half of them are over 59.
Popularity, 1880–2025
girls named Karol boys named Karol
Girls and boys called Karol
years more girls than boys years more boys than girls
Karol crossed from boys to girls in 1932, and has stayed there for 91 of the years counted since. At its furthest it was 100% girls, which is roughly where it still is.
The girls’ share of each year’s babies of the name, in the 93 years in which at least 25 babies got it. The line touches the middle more often than there are crossings marked: a year or two on the other side is not a name changing hands, and only a move that holds for 5 counted years and reaches 60/40 is recorded as one. All 581 names that changed sex.
By the numbers
- Total US births
- 11,131
- Estimated living today
- 8,700
- Median age today
- 59
- Peak year
- 2005
- Best rank
- 818th
- Rank in 2025
- 3,389th
- First recorded
- 1911
- Girls / boys
- 9,694 / 1,437
How old the living Karols are
born that year still alive today
Of the 11,131 babies given the name since 1911, about 8,700 are alive — 78 in every hundred. Roughly 1,500 of them are children and 3,400 are 65 or over. The dotted line is the median: half were born before 1966 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.
Notable Karols
- Karol Nawrocki (born 1983)Polish politician and historian, President of the Republic of Poland since 2025
- Karol G (born 1991)Colombian singer and songwriter
- Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937)Polish composer
- Karol Linetty (born 1995)Polish footballer
- Karol Dobiaš (born 1947)Slovak football player and coach
- Karol Świderski (born 1997)Polish association football player
- Karol Świerczewski (1897–1947)Polish general
- Karol Mets (born 1993)Estonian footballer
People named Karol with articles in the most Wikipedia languages. Data from Wikidata (CC0).
Where Karol is most common
Relative to how many babies each state records, Karol is most concentrated in Iowa (2.9×), Michigan (2.1×), Illinois (2.1×), California (1.8×).
Total births recorded in each state since 1910. Browse names by state.
Names of 2005
The most popular girls’ names the year Karol peaked:
Karol elsewhere
| Country | Spelling | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poland boys | Karol | 61,488 birth registrations | 15th |
| Italy girls | Karol | 1,801 | — |
| Italy boys | Karol | 1,072 | — |
| Norway boys | Karol | 609 | 149th |
| England and Wales boys | Karol | 607 | 557th |
| Ireland boys | Karol | 393 | 75th |
| France boys | Karol | 315 | 2,682nd |
| France girls | Karol | 95 | 1,529th |
| Belgium boys | Karol | 59 | 926th |
| Ireland girls | Karol | 46 | 210th |
| Scotland boys | Karol | 36 | 421st |
| Northern Ireland boys | Karol | 35 | 261st |
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.
Karol: rank by region
In 2017, Karol was given 5 times or more in 1 region of Belgium.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flanders | Karol | 869 | 5 |
In 2025, Karol was given 2 times or more in 16 regions of Poland.
| Region | Spelling | Place | Children |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dolnośląskie | Karol | 45 | 45 |
| Kujawsko-Pomorskie | Karol | 56 | 22 |
| Lubelskie | Karol | 36 | 35 |
| Lubuskie | Karol | 49 | 13 |
| Łódzkie | Karol | 55 | 28 |
| Małopolskie | Karol | 30 | 144 |
| Mazowieckie | Karol | 49 | 98 |
| Opolskie | Karol | 28 | 31 |
| Podkarpackie | Karol | 31 | 55 |
| Podlaskie | Karol | 46 | 18 |
| Pomorskie | Karol | 59 | 35 |
| Śląskie | Karol | 31 | 111 |
| Świętokrzyskie | Karol | 44 | 14 |
| Warmińsko-Mazurskie | Karol | 60 | 15 |
| Wielkopolskie | Karol | 62 | 38 |
| Zachodniopomorskie | Karol | 54 | 19 |
Each of these is the top of a list the statistics office cut off somewhere – Belgium below 5 children, 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.
Karol by city
| City | Years | Births | Best rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Berlin boys | 2017–2023 | 2 | 593rd |
One city over a few years, so these are much smaller numbers than the national ones above and not comparable with them.
Karol 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finland boys | Karol | 15 | 29 |
| Finland girls | Karol | — | 7 |
A count of people on a register – 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.
Related names
Karol 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.