Karmen
Feminine form of the name Carmen, derived from Latin meaning "song" or "poem".
Name Census estimates that about 6,756 living Americans carry the first name Karmen. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Karmen today is around 27 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Karmen births was 2008 (246 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Karmen. 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 Karmen with official rankings and popularity over time.
People living today
6.8K
~ 1 in 50,733 Americans
Peak year
2008
246 babies that year
Average age
27
years old
2024 SSA rank
#2,017
Tracked since 1935
Census
Karmen in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 6,328 people with the first name Karmen, which placed it at #3,352 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
#3,352
National first-name rank
People counted
6.3K
6,328 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
2.1
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
48.9% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Karmen
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Karmen is White at 48.9%. The next largest groups are Black (26.5%) and Hispanic (15.2%). 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 Karmen 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 Karmen at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White48.9% · 3,096
- Black or African American26.5% · 1,675
- Hispanic or Latino15.2% · 964
- Two or more races5.5% · 349
- Asian and Pacific Islander2.8% · 175
- American Indian and Alaska Native1.1% · 69
Gender
Gender distribution for Karmen
Out of the 7,182 babies given the name Karmen since 1880, 99.8% 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.
Karmen as a male name
- Ranked #13,210 in 2024
- 5 male births in 2024
- Peak: 1995 (5 births)
Karmen as a female name
- Ranked #2,017 in 2024
- 97 female births in 2024
- Peak: 2008 (246 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Karmen leans strongly female. 6,208 people counted with this name were female (98.2%), compared with 117 male bearers (1.8%).
Popularity
Karmen: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Karmen from the 1930s through to the 2020s, spanning 10 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 2010s, with 1,976 total registrations. Although the numbers have come down from the 2010s peak, Karmen remains solidly in use and shows no sign of disappearing from maternity wards.
Babies born per year
Decades
Karmen 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 Karmen during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Karmens live
The SSA's state-level files cover 32 states and territories. Texas, Georgia, North Carolina recorded the most babies named Karmen, while Nevada, Nebraska, Massachusetts recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 118 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Karmen
The name Karmen originates from the Latin word "carmen," which means "song" or "poem." It is derived from the ancient Roman goddess Carmenta, who was associated with childbirth, prophecy, and poetic inspiration. The name gained popularity during the Middle Ages when it was adopted as a Christian name in honor of the Virgin Mary, particularly in Spain and Portugal.
In its earliest recorded use, the name Karmen appeared in the 9th century as "Carmena" in a manuscript from the Monastery of San Millán de la Cogolla in Spain. It was also found in the 11th century as "Carmina" in the Codex Calixtinus, a medieval manuscript from the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Galicia, Spain.
One of the earliest notable figures with the name Karmen was Carmina Burana, a 13th-century manuscript containing a collection of secular poems and dramatic texts written in medieval Latin and Middle High German. This manuscript is considered a valuable source of information about medieval student life and culture.
In the 16th century, the Spanish mystic and writer Carmelite nun, Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582), popularized the name Karmen in Spain. Her writings and reforms within the Carmelite Order had a significant impact on the Catholic Church during the Counter-Reformation.
Another notable figure was Carmen Sylva (1843-1916), the literary name of Elisabeth of Wied, who was the Queen consort of Romania from 1881 to 1914. She was a prolific writer and published works under her pen name, which means "Song of the Forest" in Romanian.
In the 20th century, the name gained further recognition with the opera "Carmen" by Georges Bizet, which debuted in 1875. The opera's titular character, Carmen, a passionate and free-spirited gypsy woman, became an iconic figure in popular culture.
Other famous individuals with the name Karmen include Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000), a Spanish novelist and essayist known for her explorations of women's experiences and the Franco regime; Carmen Miranda (1909-1955), a Brazilian samba singer and actress renowned for her flamboyant costumes and performances; and Carmen Calvo (born 1957), a Spanish politician who served as the First Vice President of the Government of Spain from 2020 to 2023.
People
Karmen + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Karmen 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
Karmen: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Karmen?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 6,756 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Karmen 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 50,733 US residents.
Is Karmen a common name?
We classify Karmen as "Rare". It ranks above 97.1% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 7,182 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Karmen most popular?
The single biggest year for Karmen was 2008, when 246 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Karmen is about 27 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Karmen in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 6,328 people with the name Karmen, or 2.10 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #3,352 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 Karmen 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 Karmen?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Karmen leans strongly female. 6,208 people counted with this name were female (98.2%), compared with 117 male bearers (1.8%). 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 Karmen?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Karmen is White at 48.9%. The next largest groups are Black (26.5%) and Hispanic (15.2%). 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 Karmen most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Karmen in the 2020 Census, accounting for 48.9% (3,096 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 Karmen in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Karmen a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Karmen 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 Karmen still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Karmen 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 Karmen 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 common is the name Karmen?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.