When you hear the name ‘Karen’, you likely experience some mental gymnastics as your brain rapid-fire flips through recent events demonstrating just how toxic the name has become. So, it comes as no surprise then that the name has been seeing a sharp decline in popularity.
The US Social Security Administration has ranked Karen as #10 in the top most popular names over the past 100 years. However, we should note that the most popular name list is just a numerical average over a long period and doesn’t reflect the current moment. In 2018, the Social Security Administration ranked Karen at number 635, down from its height of popularity in the 1950s when Karen was the ‘it’ girls’ name in the top 10. But now, Karen has dropped even further and it seems that the name that has its own haircut and crappy attitude might actually disappear forever.
In 2020, Karen fell 171 spots on the popularity list to No. 831 (down from No. 660 in 2019). That decline makes Karen the name with the 14th-biggest decrease on the girls list in 2020 and marks its lowest ranking on the annual SSA list since the year 1927.
According to Behind the Name, Karen saw its peak in 1957 with a whopping 40,586 American baby girls anointed with the now-disgraced name. By 2018, that number dropped to 168.
According to TMZ, the folks over at www.babynames.com say that the name Karen is all but extinct. Babynames.com told TMZ that in the past year, not one of their millions of users put Karen’s name in their baby name list and that the name has seen a 75% drop in the last ten years.
Each year, the US Social Security Administration releases the list of the most popular names by rank from the previous year. Unfortunately, the release of the 2019 name list is being rescheduled “out of respect and honor for all people and families affected by the CODVID-19 pandemic. The most recent list of highest ranked baby names is from 2018 and shows no sign of Karen.
Ranked by popularity, the names for girls in 2018 were:
- Emma
- Olivia
- Ava
- Isabella
- Sophia
- Charlotte
- Mia
- Amelia
- Harper
- Evelyn
If you’re looking for some ideas for baby names then don’t worry, we got you. We’ve compiled oodles of baby name lists like this one that has a round-up of 20 amazing international baby names or this one that includes 101 truly amazing hipster names. We’ve even got baby names inspired by summer, fall, and even the beautiful South. But if you want something out of the box and different then definitely check out this list of 12 uncommon but super awesome baby names.
Whatever you do, though, just don’t name your kid Karen.
