Karl is a boy's name of German origin meaning “man, husband, freeman.” In 2024 it was given to 99 boys in the United States.
Karl belongs to the German tradition. Its meaning — “man, husband, freeman” — is the sense carried by its German roots, and it is the meaning we verified against published sources for this page. It travels in a few spellings: English.
In the United States, Karl first appears in Social Security records in 1880. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #135 in 1960, and in 2024 99 babies received the name — 100,733 in total since 1880. Those are the official counts, not estimates.
More names from the German shelf:
Karl means “man, husband, freeman” in its German roots. We check every meaning against published sources before it appears here.
Karl is a boy name. In 2024, 99 babies received the name in the US.
Karl comes from the German tradition. It is also spelled English.
Karl first appears in US records in 1880. Its best-ever ranking was #135 in 1960, and 99 babies were given the name in 2024.
Karl is pronounced /www.cnn.com/ (IPA).
Meaning and origin for this page were checked against this source. US popularity figures are from the Social Security Administration's public baby-names data. If you spot an error, write to [email protected] — accuracy is the whole point of this site, and corrections are made fast.
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