Cari
A feminine name of Latin origin meaning "beloved" or "dear".
Name Census estimates that about 11,560 living Americans carry the first name Cari. It is a predominantly female name (99.2% of registrations). The average person named Cari today is around 47 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Cari births was 1976 (541 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Cari. Below you will find a gender breakdown showing how the name splits between male and female registrations, a year-by-year popularity chart stretching back to 1880, decade-level totals, the top US states for this name, its meaning and etymology, and a set of frequently asked questions with data-backed answers.
For a British comparison, Name Census UK has a UK baby-name profile for Cari with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Cari is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 107 boys registered with the name since 1880.
People living today
12K
~ 1 in 29,650 Americans
Peak year
1976
541 babies that year
Average age
47
years old
2024 SSA rank
#5,815
Tracked since 1941
Census
Cari in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 12,061 people with the first name Cari, which placed it at #2,188 in the published first-name tables. This is a snapshot of people who already had the name at the time of the Census.
The SSA sections elsewhere on this page answer a different question: how often parents gave the name to babies over time. The "people living today" figure on this page is different again: it is a current estimate built from SSA birth records and age-based survival rates, so the two numbers are not expected to match exactly.
2020 Census rank
#2,188
National first-name rank
People counted
12K
12,061 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
4.0
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
87.0% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Cari
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cari is White at 87.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.7%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself.
The bar chart below shows how people with the first name Cari described their own race and ethnicity on the 2020 Census form. The Census Bureau groups responses into six broad categories: White, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Two or More Races. When a category has too few respondents for a given name, the Bureau suppresses the figure to protect individual privacy, which is why some names show fewer than six slices.
Percentages are shown so the breakdown is easy to read across every published category. Because the 2020 Census first-name file also includes raw headcounts for each group, Name Census can show those alongside the percentages in the legend and hover tooltip.
Keep in mind that these are self-reported numbers. A first name does not determine a person's race or ethnicity, and the distribution you see here reflects the specific population who happened to carry the name Cari at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White87.0% · 10,491
- Hispanic or Latino4.7% · 565
- Two or more races3.3% · 393
- Black or African American3.2% · 380
- Asian and Pacific Islander1.2% · 146
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.7% · 86
Gender
Gender distribution for Cari
Out of the 12,854 babies given the name Cari since 1880, 99.2% were registered as female. The name sits firmly on the female side of the spectrum, with only a handful of male registrations across the entire dataset.
Cari as a male name
- Ranked #12,604 in 2024
- 5 male births in 2024
- Peak: 2020 (11 births)
Cari as a female name
- Ranked #5,815 in 2024
- 21 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1976 (541 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cari leans strongly female. 11,919 people counted with this name were female (98.8%), compared with 149 male bearers (1.2%).
Popularity
Cari: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Cari from the 1940s through to the 2020s, spanning 9 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 4,451 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1970s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Cari by decade
The table below breaks the full SSA timeline into ten-year windows. Each row shows how many male and female babies were given the name Cari during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Caris live
The SSA's state-level files cover 41 states and territories. California, Texas, Illinois recorded the most babies named Cari, while Nevada, Mississippi, South Dakota recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 241 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Cari
The name Cari is of Latin origin, derived from the word "carus," which means "beloved" or "dear." It was a popular name in ancient Rome and was used as both a masculine and feminine name.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Cari can be found in the writings of the ancient Roman historian Tacitus. He mentions a Roman soldier named Cari who fought bravely during the Batavian Revolt in the 1st century AD.
In the 4th century AD, there was a Christian martyr named Cari who was killed during the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Diocletian. She is venerated as a saint in the Catholic Church.
During the Middle Ages, the name Cari was relatively uncommon, but it started to gain popularity again during the Renaissance period. One notable bearer of the name was Cari Borromeo (1538-1584), an Italian cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, who played a significant role in implementing the reforms of the Council of Trent.
Another famous person with the name Cari was Cari Linnaeus (1707-1778), the Swedish botanist, zoologist, and physician who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature for naming species.
In the 19th century, Cari Schurz (1829-1906) was a German-American statesman and journalist who served as the 13th United States Secretary of the Interior under President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Cari Jung (1875-1961), the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is perhaps one of the most famous individuals with the name Cari. He is widely regarded as the founder of analytical psychology and is known for his theories on the collective unconscious and archetypes.
While the name Cari has its roots in Latin, it has been adopted and used in various cultures and languages around the world, sometimes with slight variations in spelling or pronunciation.
People
Cari + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Cari as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with C
Other first names starting with C with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Cari: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Cari?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 11,560 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Cari going back to 1880 and adjusting each cohort for expected survival using CDC actuarial life tables. The result is an age-weighted living-bearer count, not a raw birth total. That works out to about 1 in 29,650 US residents.
Is Cari a common name?
We classify Cari as "Uncommon". It ranks above 97.9% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 12,854 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Cari most popular?
The single biggest year for Cari was 1976, when 541 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Cari is about 47 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Cari in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 12,061 people with the name Cari, or 3.99 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #2,188 in the national Census ranking for first names.
Why is the Census count different from the living estimate?
Because they measure different things. The Census figure is a count of people who had the name Cari in 2020. The living estimate aims to answer a current question instead: how many people with the name are alive today, based on SSA birth records and age-based survival rates. Since one number is a 2020 snapshot and the other is a present-day estimate, they are not expected to be identical.
What does the Census say about the gender split for Cari?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Cari leans strongly female. 11,919 people counted with this name were female (98.8%), compared with 149 male bearers (1.2%). The Census view is a snapshot of people living with the name in 2020, while the SSA section above tracks births across time.
What does the Census say about the background of people named Cari?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Cari is White at 87.0%. The next largest groups are Hispanic (4.7%) and Two or More Races (3.3%). These figures describe the people who had the name in 2020, not any inherent property of the name itself. The percentages in the chart above come from self-reported race and Hispanic-origin responses in the 2020 Census.
Which group reports the name Cari most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Cari in the 2020 Census, accounting for 87.0% (10,491 people in the published table).
Why can the Census sex total and race total differ slightly?
The Census Bureau published separate 2020 tables for sex and for race/Hispanic origin, and the released figures can differ slightly because of privacy protection in the public files. That is why this page treats the gender section and the race/origin section as two related snapshots instead of forcing them into one identical total.
Does every first name have Census demographic data?
No. The public Census first-name release only includes names that met the Bureau's publication rules, so many rarer names in the SSA files have no Census demographic snapshot. When that happens, the SSA trend, gender history, and state sections still appear, but the 2020 Census demographic sections are omitted.
What does the SSA popularity chart show?
The chart tracks births, not the number of people alive with the name today. Each point shows how many babies were given the name Cari in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Cari a female name?
Yes, 99.2% of people registered as Cari in the SSA data are female. You can see the full per-sex comparison in the gender distribution section above, which includes the latest year rank, birth count, and peak year for each sex.
Is Cari still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Cari in 2024, and the page above shows its latest-year rank where available. A name can be well past its peak and still remain in steady use, especially if it built up a large population over earlier decades.
Why can a name have a lot of living bearers even if it is not trendy now?
Because living-bearer counts and current baby-name popularity measure different things. A name like Cari can build up a very large population over many decades, even if fewer parents are choosing it now than they did at its peak.
Where does this data come from?
First-name figures come from the Social Security Administration's national baby name files, which cover every name on a birth certificate from 1880 to 2024. Living-bearer estimates layer in CDC actuarial life tables broken out by sex to account for mortality. The population baseline (342,754,338) is the Census Bureau's latest national estimate. You can read the full calculation on our methodology page.
How many people share the name Cari?
Want to know how many people share the name Cari? HowManyOfMe.org, our sister site, puts the living-bearer count front and centre.