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Shem Tov · Hebrew names

Girl's nameOrigin: internationalIn Israel: hardly given today

KarenIn Hebrew: קארן · meaning, pronunciation and popularity in Israel

Karen (Hebrew: קארן) is a girl's name of international origin. 701 people born in Israel between 1949 and 2024 have it today, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Its peak year was 1973, with 40 babies.

People in Israel
701
born 1949–2024
Babies in 2024
—
not in the list
Peak year
1973
40 babies
USA, 2025
175
rank #1,279

Writing and saying Karen

In Hebrew letters the name is קארן, read right to left. Karen is the Latin spelling recorded in Wikidata; families choose their own spelling in passports, so you may also meet other forms.

We have no sourced English explanation of this name yet, so we do not guess one. The Hebrew page has our Hebrew notes when there are any.

Karen by year: Israel and abroad

How many girls out of every 10,000 born each year have the name. For Israel it counts the people born that year who carry the name today (the CBS counts residents by year of birth, not birth registrations).

Karen: rate per 10,000, 1950–2025

per 10,000 babies of the same sex

Karen in English-speaking countries

Karen in each official list: latest year, count, rank and peak
Country / regionYearBabiesRankPeak
United States2025175#1,2791957 (40,591)
United Kingdom202511#2,5101997 (111)
England and Wales202511#2,4391996 (76)
Alberta20251#2,5381982 (81)

Counts for girls. The Hebrew page for Karen has every year and the other spellings.

Related Israeli names

Spelling variants and names that look or sound close in Hebrew.

Questions about Karen

How do you write Karen in Hebrew?

Karen is written קארן in Hebrew. Hebrew is read right to left.

How many people in Israel are named Karen?

701 people born between 1949 and 2024 carry the name קארן: 679 women and 22 men. The count comes from the CBS table of current first names by year of birth; years with fewer than 5 people are not published.

Is Karen a boy's or a girl's name?

In Israel it is almost always a girl's name: 96.9% of the people named קארן are women.

Is Karen used outside Israel?

The name Karen appears in the official baby name lists of English-speaking countries. In the United States 175 girls were given it in 2025 (#1,279), per the Social Security Administration. In the UK 11 in 2025 (ONS, NRS and NISRA combined).

Sources

Israel: Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), current first names of people born 1949–2024 by sex, population group and year of birth, processed 2026-09-27. CBS publications.

Abroad

Counts are copied as published. We only merged accented spellings (Zoë = Zoe) and computed ranks and rates. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia and the Open Government Licence – Alberta.