Karlen
surname · English · Latin script
Recorded for both men and women· direction only, no split published
Karlen is a surname, with more bearers in Switzerland than in any other country. In Falkland Islands (Malvinas) it is the 18th most common surname. It appears chiefly in English and Spanish, written in the Latin script. Recorded meaning: German and Swiss German; derivative of Karl.
- CHSwitzerland1 in 7.7K◐
- USUnited States1 in 419K
- FKFalkland Islands (Malvinas)1 in 1.4K
carrying the name, one hue, darker where it is more common. Hover a country for its figure.
- ≈3.7K ●
- Sources
- 165 ●
- 1 in 7.7K ◐
across 10 countries
13K records
Official registry-verified
Switzerland
Meaning & origin●
German and Swiss German; derivative of Karl.
Sources 1
- Dictionary of American Family Names
Attested across 2 languages in the etymology graph.
Where in the world●
Sorted by bearers counted by national registers, records where none counts.
| Country | Most common spelling | Sources | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | — | 1,087△ | 173 rec. | 1 in 7.7K | 1.1K | Karlen | 35 |
| SE Sweden | — | 1,072△ | 109 rec. | 1 in 9.5K | 1.1K | Karlen | 22 |
| US United States | — | 794 | 11K rec. | 1 in 419K | 920 | Karlen | 165 |
| AR Argentina | — | 582△ | 1 rec. | 1 in 78K | 582 | — | 3 |
| GB United Kingdom | — | 249 | 336 rec. | — | — | Karlen | 14 |
| DE Germany | — | 135 | 169 rec. | — | listed | Karlen | 40 |
| CA Canada | — | 134 | 182 rec. | — | 1 | Karlen | 24 |
| FI Finland | — | 100△ | 27 rec. | 1 in 56K | 100 | — | 3 |
| AU Australia | — | 89 | 151 rec. | — | 1 | Karlen | 22 |
| IL Israel | — | 64 | 73 rec. | — | — | Karlen | 3 |
| IT Italy | — | 49 | 57 rec. | — | — | Karlen | 3 |
| AG Antigua & Barbuda | — | 35 | 109 rec. | — | — | Karlen | 2 |
Roughly 1.1K people in Switzerland bear this name (about 1 in 7.7K). Estimates project the name's share of our records onto national population, so each is only as good as the record base beside it — the Basis column gives that base; rows marked △ rest on fewer records than the estimate itself and are order-of-magnitude at best.
Country figures for a list of names, at full precision, are available under licence rather than by scraping this table. How that works.
Languages●
- English8.4K45%
- Spanish5K27%
- German2.8K15%
- French5323%
- Norwegian3882%
Show as table
| Name | Records | Note |
|---|---|---|
| English | 8,354 | 45% |
| Spanish | 4,975 | 27% |
| German | 2,799 | 15% |
| French | 532 | 3% |
| Norwegian | 388 | 2% |
Language is read off each record's context, not declared by the bearer; a share is of all records for this spelling.
Other recorded senses●
Karlen is also recorded in one other lexicon, as a different name or as an ordinary word. These are senses of the spelling, not of the name above.
In Danish, definite singular of karl
as a wordkaikki.org Wiktionary extract (IPA + transliterations)
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●
Show as table
| Year | records |
|---|---|
| 1940 | 5 |
| 1943 | 7 |
| 1944 | 5 |
| 1953 | 8 |
| 1955 | 7 |
| 1956 | 7 |
| 1958 | 5 |
| 1959 | 5 |
| 1961 | 8 |
| 1962 | 5 |
| 1963 | 7 |
| 1970 | 6 |
| 1976 | 6 |
| 1984 | 5 |
| 1986 | 5 |
| 1987 | 5 |
| 1991 | 6 |
| 1992 | 10 |
| 1996 | 5 |
| 1998 | 8 |
| 2001 | 5 |
| 2002 | 6 |
| 2004 | 7 |
| 2009 | 5 |
| 2013 | 5 |
| 2015 | 5 |
US SSA — National Baby Names (1880–present) — 26 years between 1940–2015. One register's own figures, never a sum across registers: two registers counting the same people would double them.
Notable people with this name●
- Johann Karlenb. 1807CHSwiss politician (1807-1872)
- Jakob Karlenb. 1809CHSwiss politician and entrepreneur (1809-1870)
- Johann Jakob Karlenb. 1819CHSwiss farmer (1819-1873)
- Delmar Karlenb. 1912USborn:1912|died:1988|; Karlen, Delmar (1912- ).; Karlen, Delmar, 1912-1988
- Ernst Heinrich Karlenb. 1922CHRoman Catholic Bishop (1922-2012)
- John Karlenb. 1933USAmerican actor (1933–2020)
- Arno Karlenb. 1937USAmerican poet and author (1937-2010)
- Gaëtan Karlenb. 1993CHfootballer
- Gregory Karlenb. 1995CHassociation football player
- Dean KarlenCACanadian physicist
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 37 sources across 22 countries.
| Country | Register | Year | Count | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CH Switzerland | BFS — Familiennamen der Wohnbevölkerung (surnames) | 2024 | 1.1K | #1,079 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2000 | 2000 | 920 | #25,272 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2020 | 2020 | 919 | #27,762 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — Surname Frequency 2010 | 2010 | 794 | #29,661 |
| AR Argentina | RENAPER — Apellidos (person counts, national) | — | 582 | — |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 296 | #20,700 |
| US United States | Census Bureau — First Name Frequency 2020 by sex | 2020 | 201 | #20,700 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2022 | 193 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Censo 2022 Nomes no Brasil per-token lookup (v3 API, given+surname) | — | 176 | #26,090 |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — names by decade (Kaggle mirror) | 2010 | 173 | — |
| BR Brazil | IBGE — Nomes (census name API) | — | 159 | #28,816 |
| BR Brazil | Brasil.IO genero-nomes (IBGE Censo 2010 mirror, CC-BY-SA) | — | 151 | #17,015 |
Reference works 4
- Dictionary of American Family Names
- Nederlandse FamilienamenBank (Dutch surname bank; ex-Meertens Instituut, now CBG)2007
- Wikipedia surname tokens
- Wikidata name items (native-script + romanized given/family names)
These works list the name; their figures are licensed and are not reproduced here.
Register rows as of the 2026-09-12 data build · 106 rows in the corpus for this spelling.
Frequently asked questions
- How common is the name Karlen?
- We estimate roughly 3.7 thousand people bear Karlen (counting its spellings and scripts) across 10 countries in our records.
- In which country does Karlen have the most bearers?
- We estimate about 1.1 thousand people bear Karlen in Switzerland, more than in any other country in our records, where it is most often spelled karlen.
- How common is Karlen compared with other names?
- In Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Karlen is the 18th most common surname of 235 surnames recorded there.
- What does the name Karlen mean?
- Recorded meaning: German and Swiss German; derivative of Karl.
Query this name via API
curl https://api.mondonomo.ai/api/v1/name-graph/karlenThe 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
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, “Karlen” — the 18th most common surname in Falkland Islands (Malvinas). Data snapshot 2026-09-12.