Charles

given name · English · Latin script

Recorded as a male name· opposite-gender records fall within measured source noise

Charles is a given name, most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is the 15th most common given name. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: from the male personal name Charles, via French from Germanic Carl, literally ‘man’.

rarermore common
  • SESweden1 in 51◐
  • GBUnited Kingdom1 in 164
  • CACanada1 in 192

carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.

≈2.0M ●

across 9 countries

#55 ●

of 16M given names

5 ●

recorded for this name

Sources
614 ●

24M records

Official registry-verified

1 in 51 ◐

Czechia

Spellings & scripts●

CharlesLatin · English●17M records
ᲙარლGeorgian · Georgian●26 records
찰스Hangul · Korean●8 records
КарлCyrillic · Tajik●1 records
קארלHebrew · Yiddish●0 records

2 other spellings are counted as the same name:

Locally spelled Karl in DE Germany, SE Sweden, AT Austria and 3 more, Carl in DK Denmark, NZ New Zealand, IE Ireland and 1 more and Karel in CZ Czechia, NL Netherlands, BE Belgium.

Spellings marked ● are how people bearing the name write it in our records; ○ marks a model's transliteration. Click a spelling to open its page.

Meaning & origin●

from the male personal name Charles, via French from Germanic Carl, literally ‘man’

Sources 1

  • Encyclopedia of surnames [the complete companion to tracing your names history]

Attested across 12 languages in the etymology graph.

Where in the world●

Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.

Where Charles is recorded, by country
CountryMost common spellingSources
GB United Kingdom#151,257,6461.1M rec.—4Charles296
US United States#121,206,06220M rec.1 in 2761.2MCharles614
DE Germany#29510,068466K rec.—1Karl252
AU Australia#35437,174409K rec.—171Charles290
CA Canada#13434,201407K rec.—46Charles258
FR France—244,755△541 rec.1 in 277245K—14
CZ Czechia—208,144△114 rec.1 in 51208KKarel6
SE Sweden#15198,642△32K rec.1 in 51199KKarl163
PH Philippines#131138,194103K rec.——Charles154
IT Italy#51131,478137K rec.—1Charles125
BR Brazil—68,893△443 rec.1 in 3.1K73KCharles9
ZA South Africa#1159,40971K rec.——Charles151

Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.

Languages●

  • English17M72%
  • Spanish1.7M7%
  • French1.5M6%
  • Portuguese1.1M5%
  • 340K1%
Show as table
Languages in which the name is recorded
NameRecordsNote
English17,475,80472%
Spanish1,677,9357%
French1,503,1116%
Portuguese1,134,7995%
340,2831%

Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.

Other names spelled this way◐

Charles is also recorded as 7 other names, grouped separately because the records behind them do not connect to the one described above.

  • French given name1.7M records spelled Charles48 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in France, United States, Spain, Canada

    Languages: French, Spanish, Catalan

    Also written Carles, Charlès, Carlés, Charlés, Čhãŕlęš

  • a separate given name404K records spelled Charles4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada

    Also written Charlès, Charlés

  • Swahili given name357K records spelled Charles7 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania

    Languages: Swahili, Southern Sotho, Kinyarwanda

    Also written Çharles, Charles'

  • Chinese given name108K records spelled Charles3 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Myanmar (Burma)

    Languages: Chinese, Burmese

    Also written Çhärlès

  • Hindi given name93K records spelled Charles19 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in United States, India, United Kingdom, Canada

    Languages: Hindi, Urdu, Sinhala

    Also written Charls, Charlesh, চার্লস, Carls, Charlis

  • Czech given name91K records spelled Charles188 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Czechia, Poland, United States, Slovakia

    Languages: Czech, Polish, Russian

    Also written Karel, Karol, Карл, Carl, Karl

  • Indonesian given name55K records spelled Charles4 spellings in the group

    Most recorded in Indonesia, United States, Malaysia, Philippines

    Languages: Indonesian, Malay

    Also written 'Charles, Chârlēs

117 further groups record this spelling and are not listed here.

Grouping is the name graph's, not a register's: two spellings join a group when the evidence links them, so a group is a claim about the records rather than about the people.

Other recorded senses●

Charles is also recorded in 5 other lexicons, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.

  • In English, (1) from OFr Charles, from Lat Carolus, from OG Karl ‘man’; later popular in the Stuart period; first attested Carolus 1208 Cur (Sf, Nf). (2) from OE ceorl ‘freeman, peasant’; first attested Osbert Cherle 1193 P (Wa)

    as a nameA Dictionary of English Surnames

  • In English, Germanic ‘man’; used in Ireland and borne by Charles I and Charles the Great.

    as a nameIrish first names

  • In French, From Carl, meaning ‘man’; a common French/European given name.

    as a nameTên Họ Người Việt Nam

  • In French, From Germanic Karl, meaning 'man' or 'free man'.

    as a nameLe grand guide des prénoms (Enfant - Education)

  • In English, Americanized given name used as surname form

    as a nameDeutsche Namenkunde: Unsere Familiennamen nach ihrer Entstehung und Bedeutung

Ordered by how much of this spelling's record each language holds, so a sense from a language the name is barely used in sits last rather than first.

Over time●

020K40K60K19001950200041K · 1947

Show as table
Charles in SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present), United States, 1880–2025
Yearrecords
18805,348
18814,636
18825,091
18834,826
18844,802
18854,599
18864,533
18874,031
18884,591
18894,199
18904,061
18913,640
18924,319
18933,723
18943,788
18953,633
18963,639
18973,341
18983,557
18993,147
19004,098
19013,049
19023,361
19033,213
19043,406
19053,608
19063,607
19073,884
19083,929
19094,029
19104,784
19115,725
191211,070
191313,191
191416,937
191521,960
191623,612
191724,143
191826,921
191925,192
192028,309
192129,242
192228,839
192328,966
192430,460
192529,580
192629,521
192731,941
192831,243
192929,930
193031,867
193129,934
193231,092
193328,991
193429,790
193529,983
193629,101
193730,520
193831,151
193930,789
194031,689
194132,742
194235,854
194336,632
194434,662
194532,469
194638,215
194740,781
194838,676
194940,052
195039,095
195139,406
195238,866
195338,421
195437,463
195535,365
195635,239
195734,283
195832,242
195930,797
196029,677
196129,194
196227,590
196326,762
196425,908
196523,494
196622,252
196721,288
196821,575
196921,658
197022,411
197119,851
197216,968
197315,752
197415,151
197514,574
197613,921
197714,743
197814,844
197914,806
198014,959
198114,427
198214,310
198313,212
198412,942
198512,900
198612,625
198712,173
198812,109
198912,245
199012,000
199111,336
199210,469
19939,855
19949,018
19958,478
19968,248
19977,656
19987,849
19997,525
20007,525
20017,283
20027,208
20037,696
20047,652
20057,933
20068,013
20077,452
20087,288
20097,284
20107,106
20116,987
20126,947
20137,025
20147,362
20157,204
20167,127
20177,193
20186,667
20196,406
20206,249
20216,010
20225,934
20235,421
20245,613
20255,898

US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 146 years between 1880–2025. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.

Notable people with this name●

1400160018002000Charles VII, b. 1403Charles VIII, b. 1470Charles IX, b. 1550Charles Perrault, b. 1628Charles II of England, b. 1630Carlos Roberto Darwin, b. 1809Charles Édouard Guillaume, b. 1861Leopold III of Belgium, b. 1901Tjalling Koopmans, b. 1910Herbert Brown, b. 1912

The ten people covered by the most Wikipedia language editions — a proxy for cross-cultural notability, which favours historical and Western figures over equally prominent contemporary ones — shown by birth year. Source: Wikidata (CC0).

Evidence●

Attested in 165 sources across 85 countries.

Official registers attesting Charles
CountryRegisterYearCountRank
US United StatesCensus Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex20201.2M#17
FR FranceINSEE — Fichier des prénoms (1900–2024)2024245K#68
BR BrazilIBGE — Nomes (census name API)—73K#598
BR BrazilIBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror)202269K—
BR BrazilIBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname)—69K#438
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020202063K#526
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010201061K#548
US United StatesCensus Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000200052K#589
SE SwedenSkatteverket — Sök hur många som har ett visst namn (living population)—6.6K#521
US United StatesSSA — National Baby Names (1880–present)20255.9K—
NL NetherlandsMeertens NVB — Nederlandse Voornamenbank (live per-name BRP counts, 1790-2017)—4.2K#812
GD GrenadaGrenada — Consolidated List of Electors December 202520253.3K#1

Reference works 8

  • The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland
  • Słownik nazwisk współcześnie w Polsce używanych (Tom II: C-D)
  • Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
  • Nişanyan Adlar (Turkish given-name national-registry frequency)
  • Wikipedia given-name tokens
  • Wikipedia surname tokens
  • Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
  • jeantosti.com — Dictionnaire des noms de famille de France et d'ailleurs (Jean Tosti)

These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.

Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 2,237 rows in the corpus for this spelling.

Frequently asked questions

How common is the name Charles?
We estimate roughly 2.0 million people bear Charles (counting its spellings and scripts) across 9 countries in our records.
In which country does Charles have the most bearers?
Charles is most frequently recorded in the United Kingdom, where it is most often spelled charles.
Where is Charles most common?
Measured as a share of residents rather than as a count, Charles is densest in the Czechia — about 1 in 51 people — even though United Kingdom holds more of our records for it.
How common is Charles compared with other names?
In the United Kingdom, Charles is the 15th most common given name of 369,273 given names recorded there.
Is Charles a male or female name?
Charles is a male name in our records. Opposite-gender entries fall within the cross-gender noise we measure in the source data, so we don't report them as usage.
What does the name Charles mean?
Recorded meaning: from the male personal name Charles, via French from Germanic Carl, literally ‘man’
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/charles

The same payload this page is built from: spellings and scripts, countries and languages, related names, and the registers that attest the form. Rate-limited for casual use. Bulk access and licensing.

About this data

● measured from records◐ inferred from the name graph○ machine-generated

Data snapshot . Figures are rebuilt periodically and will change.

Statistics are aggregated from the Mondonomo name corpus; related names and etymology are inferred from the name graph; pronunciation and any machine-marked transliterations are model-generated. Read how the numbers are made, including their known failure modes, and where the data comes from.

Reference works we consult — surname dictionaries, official name registers, Wikidata and Wiktionary — are named directly, beside the claims they support. The per-country source counts also include datasets of person records: we publish how many there are and their authority tier, but not their names.

Cite this page Mondonomo, “Charles” — the 15th most common given name in United Kingdom. Data snapshot 2026-09-12.

See how Charles parses inside a full name →