Katrina
A feminine English name, derived from the Greek Katharina, meaning "pure."
Name Census estimates that about 92,554 living Americans carry the first name Katrina. The name is used almost exclusively for girls. The average person named Katrina today is around 42 years old, and the year with the single highest number of Katrina births was 1980 (3,415 babies).
This page is the full Name Census profile for Katrina. 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 Katrina with official rankings and popularity over time.
Key insights
- • Although Katrina is used almost entirely for girls, the SSA data does show 238 boys registered with the name since 1880.
- • Compared to the 1980s, recent registration numbers for Katrina have dropped to less than 5% of what they once were.
People living today
93K
~ 1 in 3,703 Americans
Peak year
1980
3,415 babies that year
Average age
42
years old
1994 SSA rank
#1,637
Tracked since 1895
Census
Katrina in the 2020 Census
The 2020 Census recorded 90,141 people with the first name Katrina, which placed it at #589 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
#589
National first-name rank
People counted
90K
90,141 in the published race/origin table
Per 100,000
29.8
People with this name in 2020
Largest reported group
White
60.1% of people with this name
Demographics
Ancestry and ethnicity for Katrina
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Katrina is White at 60.1%. The next largest groups are Black (21.4%) and Hispanic (8.1%). 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 Katrina 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 Katrina at the time of the 2020 Census, not any inherent property of the name itself.
- White60.1% · 54,139
- Black or African American21.4% · 19,318
- Hispanic or Latino8.1% · 7,281
- Asian and Pacific Islander4.8% · 4,353
- Two or more races4.7% · 4,245
- American Indian and Alaska Native0.9% · 805
Gender
Gender distribution for Katrina
Out of the 101,645 babies given the name Katrina 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.
Katrina as a male name
- Ranked #6,689 in 1994
- 8 male births in 1994
- Peak: 1980 (18 births)
Katrina as a female name
- Ranked #1,637 in 2024
- 126 female births in 2024
- Peak: 1980 (3,397 births)
2020 Census snapshot
In the 2020 Census sex table, Katrina appears almost entirely female. Of the 90,135 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male.
Popularity
Katrina: popularity over time
The SSA tracks Katrina from the 1890s through to the 2020s, spanning 14 decades of birth certificate data. The biggest single decade for the name was the 1980s, with 28,954 total registrations. Usage has dropped considerably from its 1980s peak. The most recent decade brought in only a fraction of the registrations that the name once attracted.
Babies born per year
Decades
Katrina 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 Katrina during that decade, along with a combined total. This is useful for spotting eras where the name surged or retreated.
Geography
Where Katrinas live
The SSA's state-level files cover 51 states and territories. California, New York, Texas recorded the most babies named Katrina, while Wyoming, Vermont, Rhode Island recorded the fewest. The average across all reporting states is about 1,928 registrations each.
Origin
Meaning and history of Katrina
The name Katrina is a feminine given name derived from the ancient Greek name Αικατερίνη (Aikaterine). It originated as a combination of the Greek words καθαρός (katharos) meaning "pure" and a shortened form of the name Εκατερίνη (Hekaterine).
Aikaterine was the name of one of the first Christian saints from the 4th century AD, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, who was martyred for her faith. The legends surrounding this saint contributed to the popularity of the name among early Christians in the Byzantine Empire.
The name Katrina emerged as a variant of the name Catherine, which was widespread across Europe during the Middle Ages. It was particularly popular in Germany, where it was spelled Katharina or Kathrine. The Scandinavian form, Katrine, also gained popularity in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.
One of the earliest recorded instances of the name Katrina can be found in the 13th-century Icelandic saga "Njál's Saga," which mentions a character named Katrina. In the 16th century, the name was used by notable historical figures such as Katrina of Saxe-Lauenburg, a German princess born in 1501.
Throughout history, several notable women have borne the name Katrina. These include Katrina van Bronckhorst (1627-1701), a Dutch Golden Age painter; Katrina Pavlovna (1788-1819), a Russian Grand Duchess; and Katrina Mersiowsky (1842-1892), a German-American actress and singer.
Another famous bearer of the name was Katrina van Arrogon, better known as Catherine of Braganza (1638-1705), a Portuguese princess who became the Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland through her marriage to King Charles II.
In literature, Katrina is a central character in Washington Irving's short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," published in 1820. The story's protagonist, Ichabod Crane, falls in love with the character Katrina van Tassel, the daughter of a wealthy farmer.
People
Katrina + last name combinations
How many people share a full name with Katrina 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
Katrina: questions and answers
How many people in the U.S. are named Katrina?
Name Census puts the figure at roughly 92,554 living Americans. We arrive at this by taking every SSA birth registration for Katrina 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 3,703 US residents.
Is Katrina a common name?
We classify Katrina as "Uncommon". It ranks above 99.5% of all first names in the SSA dataset by living bearers. Across the full history of the data, 101,645 babies have been registered with this name.
When was Katrina most popular?
The single biggest year for Katrina was 1980, when 3,415 babies received the name. The fact that the average living Katrina is about 42 years old gives you a rough sense of which era contributed the most bearers who are still alive today.
How common was Katrina in the 2020 Census?
The published 2020 Census first-name tables recorded 90,141 people with the name Katrina, or 29.85 per 100,000 residents. That placed it at #589 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 Katrina 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 Katrina?
In the 2020 Census sex table, Katrina appears almost entirely female. Of the 90,135 people counted with this name, 99.9% were female and only a very small share were male. 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 Katrina?
In the 2020 Census race and Hispanic-origin table, the largest reported group for people named Katrina is White at 60.1%. The next largest groups are Black (21.4%) and Hispanic (8.1%). 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 Katrina most often in the Census?
White is the largest reported group for people named Katrina in the 2020 Census, accounting for 60.1% (54,139 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 Katrina in that year. That makes it useful for spotting when the name rose, peaked, or faded.
Is Katrina a female name?
Yes, 99.8% of people registered as Katrina 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 Katrina still being used today?
Yes. The SSA still recorded Katrina 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 Katrina 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 are named Katrina?
For a quick modern estimate, our sister site HowManyOfMe.org answers that in one glance, with the living-bearer count front and centre.