Carolan
Girls' nameMeaning not yet documented
Carolan has been given to 148 babies in the U.S. since 1940. 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 1941, with 12 recorded.
Babies named Carolan, 1998
1 in 735,000
Carolan over time, 1880–2025
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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.
How common is Carolan?
Carolan had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 1998, the last year it was published.
- Among all babies, 1998
- 1 in 735,000
- 5 of 3,677,189 births
- Among girls only
- 1 in 353,000
- <0.01% of girls
- Rank, 1998
- Unranked
- Fewer than 5 uses
- Coin-flip room size
- 509,768 kids
- Even odds of a second one
Where Carolan sits on the popularity scale
Chance at least one other child shares the name
If the other children were drawn at random from the 1998 national name distribution. Real classrooms cluster by region and community, so treat these as a floor, not a ceiling.
Put another way: gather 509,768 children born in 1998 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Carolan. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.
When Carolans were born
Half of everyone ever recorded as Carolan was born before 1951 — so the typical Carolan is around 74 today.
- Biggest decade
- 1940s
- 40.5% of all use
- Born in the last 25 years
- 23.0%
- Spread across generations
- Recorded since 1950
- 88
- People you could plausibly meet
1940s — 40.5% of all recorded uses (60).
Is Carolan 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 1941 (12)
- Years since peak
- 84
- Years
- Year-to-year steadiness
- Volatile
- 25.6% average annual change
Spellings of Carolan
Carolan is not the most common spelling — Carol is, with 41.2% against Carolan's <0.01%.
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.
Carolan around the world
Where Carolan 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.
- Scotland1976–1976#516in 1976
- France1991–2000#4,115in 2000
- Canada1991–1996#2,248in 1996
- South Australia1962–1966#658in 1966
Popularity data from National Records of Scotland, Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, Statistics Canada and Consumer and Business Services (South Australia). NRS data under Open Government Licence v3.0. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.
Carolan by the numbers
The raw record for each sex the name is used for.
Names similar to Carolan
Matched on shared beginnings and endings, similar length, and comparable popularity.
Sibling names for Carolan
Names from the same era and popularity tier — the two things that make a sibling set feel deliberate — skipping lookalike spellings and shared initials.