Karl — #1684 US boys' name

What the Data Says About Karl

The Social Security Administration has registered 100,733 babies named Karl between 1880 and 2024, spanning 145 consecutive years of U.S. birth records. As a boy's name, Karl currently holds the #1684 rank among boys for 2024. The name reached its historical peak in 1960, when 2,594 babies received it in a single year.

Decade-level aggregation shows that Karl performed strongest in the 1960s, accumulating 21,183 births during that ten-year window. Across the 15 decades of recorded activity, Karl shows a clear decline from its mid-century high. Geographically, the name is most concentrated in New York, which accounts for 9,156 births — the largest state-level total in the dataset — followed by California and Pennsylvania. In total, SSA state-level files list Karl in 51 of the 51 U.S. reporting jurisdictions.

No etymological entry is currently available for Karl in our reference dataset. These figures derive from SSA's annual national and state-level name files, which include any name appearing at least five times in a given year or state-year; names below that threshold are suppressed for privacy and therefore excluded from the totals shown here. The 100,733 total represents a lower bound — actual usage may be higher in years or states where the count fell below the disclosure floor. This page is provided for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute personal, legal, or naming advice.