Name Awesome

Caren

Girls' name

Variant of Karen

Caren has been given to 9,560 babies in the U.S. since 1925. It was used fewer than 5 times in 2025, so it doesn't appear in the latest year's list — today it's a genuinely uncommon pick. Its peak year was 1957, with 387 recorded.

Babies named Caren, 2019

1 in 579,000

Caren over time, 1880–2025

Girls
010020030040018801900192019401960198020002020

Based on births in the U.S. Babies given the name each year. Hover the chart — or focus it and use the arrow keys — for any year. Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Caren: meaning, origin, and history

Variant of Karen

Ancient Greek

What Caren means

Caren is a variant of Karen.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Caren is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /ˈkæɹ.ən/ and /ˈkɛɹ.ən/ for Caren.

Meaning behind the documented name family

The name developed through Caren → Karen → Catherine. The family’s proposed meaning is “each of the two”, recorded in English with the source elements hekáteros.

Origin, language, and formation

Caren is used in English and German. Its origins include Ancient Greek.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Karen.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 9,560 girls were recorded with the name Caren between 1925 and 2019. Its highest annual count was 387 in 1957; its best national rank was #485 in 1957.

Sources & methodologyReferences, data & attribution

Meaning, origin, and language notes draw on the references below.

American popularity figures use published Social Security Administration records for this exact spelling. Counts below five for a name, sex, and year are omitted.

Wiktionary material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

How common is Caren?

Caren had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2019, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2019
1 in 579,000
6 of 3,472,229 births
Among girls only
1 in 280,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2019
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
401,129 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Caren sits on the popularity scale

Rarest published (5 a year)#1 — Olivia (13,544)

Chance at least one other child shares the name

If the other children were drawn at random from the 2019 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.

Class of 20Under 1%
Class of 30Under 1%
Grade of 100Under 1%
School of 500Under 1%

Put another way: gather 401,129 children born in 2019 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Caren. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Carens were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Caren was born before 1962 — so the typical Caren is around 63 today.

Median birth year
1962
About 63 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
28.1% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
7.8%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
8,303
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 28.1% of all recorded uses (2,682).

Is Caren rising or falling?

Rank movement and count movement can disagree — the number of distinct names in use keeps growing, so a name holding a steady count still slides down the list. Both are shown.

Rank vs 1 year ago
—
Not ranked then
Rank vs 5 years ago
New entry
Not ranked then
Rank vs 10 years ago
—
Not ranked then
Births vs 10 years ago
—
Not published both years
Share of its own peak
0%
Peak was 1957 (387)
Years since peak
68
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
29.3% average annual change
Best rank ever
#485
1957

Spellings of Caren

Caren is not the most common spelling — Karen is, with 29.0% against Caren's 0.28%.

Grouped by closeness of spelling (up to two letter changes), same sex, with a floor on all-time use. It catches Sophia/Sofia and Aiden/Ayden, and misses spellings that sound alike but look different, like Sean and Shawn.

Where Caren is used

Across 1910–2025, Caren was most concentrated in New York — about 1 in 9,091 girls, against 1 in 22,361 across all states with data. It was least common in Tennessee (1 in —).

011 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1New York1 in 9,091
  2. 2California1 in 11,111
  3. 3New Jersey1 in 12,500
  4. 4Massachusetts1 in 14,286
  5. 5Illinois1 in 20,000
  6. 6Michigan1 in 20,000
  7. 7Ohio1 in 20,000
  8. 8Pennsylvania1 in 20,000

Shading is the share of that state's recorded girls given this name, not the raw count — otherwise the map would just show which states are biggest. Unshaded states have no published records for this period. U.S. birth records suppress state-year counts below 5; state counts therefore don't add up to the national total. Every state links to its full rankings. Caren has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Caren around the world

Where Caren ranks in official birth records elsewhere in the world. Rankings only — the number of births isn’t comparable between places, so it isn’t shown.

  • England & Wales
    1996–2011
    #5,785
    in 2011
  • Scotland
    1974–1984
    #473
    in 1984
  • Ireland
    1967–1982
    #523
    in 1982
  • France
    1974–2016
    #6,911
    in 2016
  • Canada
    1993–2022
    #3,322
    in 2022
  • South Australia
    1949–1992
    #704
    in 1992

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, Central Statistics Office, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). ONS, NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. CSO, CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence.

Notable people named Caren

People whose public names include Caren, backed by Wikidata given-name records and ordered by linked Wikimedia pages. The name may be a middle name.

People data from Wikidata (CC0). Fame is measured, not judged — the order reflects how widely each person is documented, not the U.S. birth records popularity this page is otherwise about.

Caren in other languages

Cross-language forms and variants of Caren. Linked forms have their own page here.

CarinCaronKarenCarenaCarene

Variant forms from Wikidata (CC0). Most are used mainly outside the United States; U.S. birth records statistics cover US usage only.

Caren by the numbers

The raw record for each sex the name is used for.

As a girl's name

Rank in 2025
Unranked
Trend vs 5 yrs ago
—
Best rank ever
#485
1957
Peak year
1957
387 that year
First recorded
1925
Last recorded
2019
All-time count
9,560
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Caren

Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.

CarliCarterCarmaCarsonCarmelCariCarleeCarlieCarinaCarleyCarysCarrenCarynCarsynCareyLorenCarlynMarenCarylKerenCarlyCarleneCarinCarie

Names with a curve like Caren

Not spelling — timing. These names rose, peaked and faded in the same years as Caren, so they read as being from the same moment even when they look nothing alike.

GeriPamalaValorieGaylaRoxannDeniceMaribethColeenVikkiJerriPatricaDonita

Sibling names for Caren

Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.

Explore around Caren

Top names of 1957, Caren's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1957Girls' names starting with C