Name Awesome

Karlene

Girls' name

Variant of Carlene

Karlene has been given to 4,167 babies in the U.S. since 1913. 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 1959, with 104 recorded.

Babies named Karlene, 2024

1 in 478,000

Karlene over time, 1880–2025

Girls
05010015018801900192019401960198020002020

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 Gaps mean the name was given fewer than 5 times that year; these counts are unpublished.

Karlene: meaning, origin, and history

Variant of Carlene

Deeper origin not confirmed in the cited records

What Karlene means

Karlene is a variant of Carlene.

Documented naming usage and pronunciation

Karlene is used in English.

Another recorded pronunciation is /kɑɹ.ˈlin/ and /kɑː.ˈliːn/ for Karlene.

Related names and everyday forms

Related names include Carlene.

Pronunciation and spelling

In English, Karlene is pronounced /kɑɹˈlin/.

American usage and historical context

In the United States, 4,167 girls were recorded with the name Karlene between 1913 and 2024. Its highest annual count was 104 in 1959; its best national rank was #786 in 1939.

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 Karlene?

Karlene had fewer than 5 recorded uses in 2025, so these figures use 2024, the last year it was published.

Among all babies, 2024
1 in 478,000
7 of 3,342,801 births
Among girls only
1 in 231,000
<0.01% of girls
Rank, 2024
Unranked
Fewer than 5 uses
Coin-flip room size
331,009 kids
Even odds of a second one

Where Karlene 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 2024 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 331,009 children born in 2024 and it's an even bet that one of them is another Karlene. In a class of 30 the chance is Under 1%.

When Karlenes were born

Half of everyone ever recorded as Karlene was born before 1959 — so the typical Karlene is around 66 today.

Median birth year
1959
About 66 years old
Biggest decade
1950s
20.5% of all use
Born in the last 25 years
6.8%
Mostly a past generation
Recorded since 1950
2,907
People you could plausibly meet
Choose a decade

1950s — 20.5% of all recorded uses (853).

Is Karlene 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 1959 (104)
Years since peak
66
Years
Year-to-year steadiness
Volatile
48.4% average annual change
Best rank ever
#786
1939

Spellings of Karlene

Karlene is not the most common spelling — Karen is, with 47.6% against Karlene's 0.20%.

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 Karlene is used

Across 1910–2025, Karlene was most concentrated in Iowa — about 1 in 33,333 girls, against 1 in 87,551 across all states with data. It was least common in Texas (1 in —).

03 per 100,000

Most concentrated

  1. 1Iowa1 in 33,333
  2. 2California1 in 50,000
  3. 3Idaho1 in 50,000
  4. 4Michigan1 in 50,000
  5. 5Minnesota1 in 50,000
  6. 6Washington1 in 50,000
  7. 7Wisconsin1 in 50,000
  8. 8Illinois1 in 100,000

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. Karlene has too little recent state data to map, so this covers all years from 1910.

Karlene around the world

Where Karlene 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
    2003–2003
    #4,373
    in 2003
  • Scotland
    1980–1993
    #547
    in 1993
  • France
    1997–1997
    #4,296
    in 1997
  • Canada
    1991–2001
    #2,611
    in 2001
  • South Australia
    1944–1999
    #729
    in 1999

Popularity data from Office for National Statistics, National Records of Scotland, 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. INSEE data under Licence Ouverte / Etalab 2.0. StatCan data under Statistics Canada Open Licence. CBS SA data under CC BY 4.0.

Karlene in other languages

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

CarleneKarleen

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

Karlene 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
#786
1939
Peak year
1959
104 that year
First recorded
1913
Last recorded
2024
All-time count
4,167
Count in 2025
Under 5

Names similar to Karlene

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

KarolynKareneKarismaKarolineKarterKarolinaKarenaKarleighKaralynKareenaKarizmaKarelyKarimeRayleneKarmenKarlynKarleyKarmynKarymeKarsonKayleneJasleneJaileneKarsyn

Names with a curve like Karlene

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

SuzannEvonneRonaldCarleenJoettaGaryJoellenMaritaJacqueJacqualineDelaineRoseanne

Sibling names for Karlene

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 Karlene

Top names of 1959, Karlene's peak yearThe 1950s in fullOther names that peaked in 1939Girls' names starting with K