Kareen
A feminine name of Arabic origin meaning "pure, chaste".
Name Census estimates that about 1,726 living Americans carry the first name Kareen. It appears on both sides of the gender split, with 63.8% of registrations being female. The average person named Kareen today is around 47 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Kareen births was 1975 (100 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Kareen. 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 Kareen with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Kareen sits in rare territory as a truly gender-neutral name, given to boys and girls in near-equal numbers.
People living today
1.7K
~ 1 in 198,583 Americans
Peak year
1975
100 babies that year
Average age
47
years old
2017 SSA rank
#13,251
Tracked since 1921
Census
Kareen in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 2,153 people with the first name Kareen, which placed it at #7,162 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
#7,162
National first-name rank
People counted
2.2K
2,153 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
0.7
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
Black or African American
45.2% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Kareen
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kareen is Black at 45.2%. The next largest groups are White (34.0%) and Hispanic (10.3%). 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 Kareen 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 Kareen at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- Black or African American45.2% · 973
- White34.0% · 732
- Hispanic or Latino10.3% · 221
- Asian and Pacific Islander6.8% · 146
- Two or more races3.2% · 69
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.6% · 12
Gender
Gender distribution for Kareen
Kareen is one of the more evenly split names in the SSA data. Of the 2,048 total registrations, 742 (36.2%) were male and 1,306 (63.8%) were female.
Kareen as a male name
- Ranked #13,251 in 2017
- 5 male births in 2017
- Peak: 1975 (71 births)
Kareen as a female name
- Ranked #16,270 in 2020
- 5 female births in 2020
- Peak: 1977 (41 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kareen leans strongly female. 1,813 people counted with this name were female (84.2%), compared with 341 male bearers (15.8%).
Popularity
Kareen: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Kareen from the 1920s through to the 2020s, spanning 11 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1970s, with 585 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
Kareen 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 Kareen during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Kareens live
The SSA's state-level files cover 8 states and territories. New York, California, Pennsylvania recorded the most babies named Kareen, while South Carolina, Michigan, North Carolina recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 50 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Kareen
The name Kareen is derived from the Arabic name Karim, which means "generous" or "noble." It is a feminine variant of the masculine name Karim. The name has its roots in the Arabic language and culture, dating back to the 7th century during the rise of Islam.
The earliest recorded use of the name Kareen can be traced back to the medieval Islamic world, where it was used as a name for girls born into aristocratic or wealthy families. The name was popular among Arab nobility and scholars, as it was believed to bestow the qualities of generosity and nobility upon the bearer.
One of the earliest known historical figures with the name Kareen was Kareen al-Ansari, a 9th-century Arab poet and scholar from Basra, Iraq. She was renowned for her exceptional poetic talents and contributions to Arabic literature.
Another notable figure was Kareen bint Burhan al-Din, a 13th-century Sufi mystic and poet from the city of Konya, in present-day Turkey. She was a prominent figure in the Mevlevi Order, a spiritual Sufi movement founded by the Persian poet Rumi.
In the 15th century, Kareen al-Jaramani was a celebrated calligrapher and artist from the city of Jarama, near present-day Madrid, Spain. Her intricate calligraphic works were highly sought after and adorned the walls of mosques and palaces throughout the Iberian Peninsula.
During the Ottoman Empire, Kareen Sultan, born in 1583, was a prominent figure in the imperial harem. She was the daughter of Sultan Murad III and held a respected position as a member of the Ottoman royal family.
In the 19th century, Kareen Amirun, born in 1845 in Hyderabad, India, was a renowned poet and educator. She played a significant role in promoting women's education and literary pursuits during the Nizam's rule in the Deccan region.
These are just a few examples of notable historical figures who bore the name Kareen, showcasing its rich cultural heritage and linguistic origins in the Arabic language and Islamic civilization.
People
Kareen + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Kareen as the first name? Click a combination below to see the estimate, or search any pairing.
Related
Other names starting with K
Other first names starting with K with a similar number of bearers.
FAQ
Kareen: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Kareen?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 1,726 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Kareen 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 198,583 US residents.
Is Kareen a common name?
We classify Kareen as "Rare". It ranks above 93.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 2,048 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Kareen most popular?
The single biggest year for Kareen was 1975, when 100 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Kareen 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 Kareen in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 2,153 people with the name Kareen, or 0.71 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #7,162 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 Kareen 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 Kareen?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Kareen leans strongly female. 1,813 people counted with this name were female (84.2%), compared with 341 male bearers (15.8%). 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 Kareen?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Kareen is Black at 45.2%. The next largest groups are White (34.0%) and Hispanic (10.3%). 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 Kareen most often in the Census?
Black is the largest reported group for people named Kareen in the 2020 Census, accounting for 45.2% (973 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 Kareen in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Kareen a female name?
Yes, 63.8% of people registered as Kareen 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 Kareen still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Kareen 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 Kareen 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 have the name Kareen?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.