Carl is a boy's name of English origin meaning “free man.” In 2024 it was given to 215 boys in the United States.
Carl belongs to the English & American tradition. Its meaning — “free man” — is the sense carried by its English 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, Carl first appears in Social Security records in 1880. It climbed to its best-ever rank of #22 in 1894, and in 2024 215 babies received the name — 504,635 in total since 1880. Those are the official counts, not estimates.
More names from the English & American shelf:
Carl means “free man” in its English roots. We check every meaning against published sources before it appears here.
Carl is a boy name. In 2024, 215 babies received the name in the US.
Carl comes from the English & American tradition. It is also spelled English.
Carl first appears in US records in 1880. Its best-ever ranking was #22 in 1894, and 215 babies were given the name in 2024.
Carl is pronounced /kɑːl/ (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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